Kick It Up
by acciopigfarts
Summary: Street-dancing has always been Maximum Ride's passion, but getting into the ITA Competition is her dream. She gets a place, and meets the dark and mysterious Fang. But all good things come to an end, don't they? 'FAX' No Wings. Co-ed by FangIsFexellent.
1. Chapter 1

***NOTICE AS OF 17.4.11 (4.17.11 for you Americans ...). Since we begin this story, our names have changes. B4k4 r3dux is now the lovely FangIsFexcellent, and I am not longer Blackiee, but acciopigfarts. I'm still called Blacks though. Got it? Good :D***

**Blackiee: Okay. Hey! **

**Yes, I know I am still to finish to Secrets and Lies, and I will! But the plot bunny was nomming on my brain. That didn't sound weird . . .**

**So. This fanfiction is co-written by the wonderful b4k4 r3dux, whose profile you should most definitely check out.**

**Disclaimer : I do not own Maximum Ride.**

**B4k4: ...I don't own anything either XD**

**And I know I still have Two Flocks to do...but how could I resist helping blackiee out? And a warning: because of our mixed origins (I'm Americans, she's British) some of the words might be a little messed up: one minute we'll probably be saying "color" (me writing) then the next will end up as "colour" (her writing). So bear with us XD.**

**Have fun! Be awesome and review, kthxbaiii!**

OMNOM I AM A LIINNEEE BRREEAAKKKK :D:D:D

Slide. Shoulder pop. Repeat. Duck. Kick. Jump. Body ripple. Repeat.

And again. And again. And again.

I was panting as I pressed the 'stop' button on my iPod, pulling out my earphones. I threw it carelessly onto my carpeted bedroom floor as I collapsed onto my bed in a tangled heap. I had been practicing that tiny section of my dance repeatedly for over half an hour. And I still couldn't get it right . . . I ran over it again in my head, wondering why it still felt wrong.

"Max, if you're gonna stomp like that, at least move down to the basement!" yelled my sister Ella from downstairs...right under me, actually. Oops. I hoped I hadn't started raining chunks of ceiling on her.

I feebly waved a hand towards the floor, as if she could see it, before letting it fall back onto my stomach. I closed my eyes as I ran through those few moves again for about five minutes, before jumping up again. I stood in front of my mirror, running a hand through my knotted blond and brown hair. It was hanging limply to my shoulder blades in a tangled mess, looking more like a birds nest than hair. I fingered my holey cream tank top, pulling it down to my black sweatpants again so my stomach was covered completely. I turned to grab a hair tie from my bedside table when I noticed the time on my alarm clock.

2:25.

"_Shit!" _I almost screeched as my eyes widened. I had a performance with my class in half an hour. It was fifteen minutes away. I almost _flew_ to my shower, shedding clothes all the while and jumped in; turning it up to its maximum heat to wash away the sweat and grime I had collected during the day. I made sure to de-tangle my hair; Dylan would slaughter me if I turned up with it looking like that.

I finished in record time, jumping out and sliding into my clothes quickly. I had picked them out before; a simple black and blue tank top with my favourite black leggings. I hobbled over to my sisters room opposite mine, pulling on my black-on-black hi-tops as I went. I just hoped to God that she and her best friend, Nudge, had migrated up here while I was showering. I didn't have time to try and find them downstairs.

I threw the door open to see them sat on Ella's bed, magazines strewn around them as they talked in earnest, probably about the latest teen heart-throb.

"Dude. I need you to do my hair. Like, now." I finished tying up my sneaker as I fell into my sister's chair, surrendering myself to them. I would have normally tried to do my hair myself, but I had a total of five minutes before I needed to set off, and if anyone could do hair in that amount of time, it was these two.

They knew what I wanted; my hair in soft waves down my back, simple, easy to work with. I couldn't stand to have it tied back when I was doing one of my performances, and if I came in with it looking like anything less than perfection Dylan would murder me in my sleep.

I could hear them muttering to each other as they put God-knows-what into my hair, undoubtedly wanting to make it sleek and shiny and soft and-

I looked at Ella's sickeningly pink wall clock. I had fifteen minutes before the show started. "Hurry up, come on, come on!" Nudge produced a crimping iron out of nowhere and plugged it in, starting on my bangs even though the iron wasn't even hot yet. I could feel the heat building on my forehead and I gave them about two minutes of time with my head before I pushed them away. "I seriously have to go!"

"It looks great, Max!" Ella yelled down the stairs. I grabbed my legwarmers off the banister (what were they doing there anyway?) and exploded out the door. I could get there in thirteen minutes if I sped just a tiny bit. Luckily, somehow my car keys had gotten in my hand. I tossed my dance bag into the back of my tiny Volvo and slid behind the wheel, cursing at it when it stalled the first time I tried to start it. It was obviously scared of what I said I would do to it if it didn't boot up, and the engine turned over the second time I tried. I pulled out of the driveway as fast as I could without hitting the mailbox and turned onto the route that would take me to the street corner that Dylan had told us to meet at. We'd be there for a few hours, then we'd all go out for ice cream and tacos, our after-performance dance tradition, Kool-Aid toasts all around.

The city streets decided to be nice to me today, and there was virtually no traffic between my house and the street I was looking for. I parked in a gas station parking lot and pulled on my legwarmers. 2:53. I could make it.

I quite literally ran to the corner, where the rest of my troupe was waiting. Dyl grinned at me as I sprinted up, throwing my bag on the ground and raising my hand while gasping "I'm here..."

"So I see," he said, his blue eyes mocking. Dyl loves to tease me. I don't hold it against him, and we're pretty good friends. He's only two years older than I am. I could still remember the first time we met; I was twelve, wandering the streets in a sulk as my mom hadn't let me go out to meet my friends. So I snuck out anyway. I was searching for them when I passed a small, brick building that was practically shaking with the bass pumping out from it. I noted a small sign stuck on the door; literally rattling with the force of each beat. I tore it down and held it, leaning on one of the trembling walls.

_Dylan's Street Dance_ it read. I scanned the details quickly. It seemed like this was a dance troupe that some fourteen year old kid had decided to start up. Seemed like a bratty rich kid who wanted to rebel to me. I was about to re-stick the flyer to the door when it opened in front of me, revealing two lanky blonde-haired, blue eyed boys. One looked me up and down, saw the paper in my hand, and gave an approving nod.

"Hey, the name's Dylan. Didja wanna join up?"

And that was that.

I ignored Dyl's faked tutting and went to pick up my bag again from the ground to we could go to the place we were performing at today. But my hand grasped at thin air. I saw a pair of Converse-clad feet in front of me and my gaze travelled upwards, taking in all six foot two of my best friend, Iggy Griffiths.

Iggy had been the other guy standing at the door five years ago. Once I'd been welcomed inside, he'd introduced himself as James, but you could call him Iggy. He'd been to one to partner me first, to help me gain my confidence as I kept returning, until we had become best friends. The big idiot.

I noticed he was holding my dance bag behind his back, grinning evilly. I narrowed my eyes. "Iggy, give me my bag." I took a small step towards him, but he just stepped away from me, knocking into another guy, Jack, who sent him an amused look before moving to the side. I kept my gaze level, looking right into Iggy's cloudy pale blue eyes. I watched as some of the laughter faded in them and changed to a tense excitement. He smirked as he realized that I was thinking how to get my bag back. I narrowed my eyes again, before suddenly jumping at him, reaching an arm around him to grab my bag.

He felt my motion and jerked his arm upwards, laughing and holding it above his head. "C'mon shorty, try and get your bag back." I heard the rest of the troupe laugh at this; my height was often the cause of jokes.

"Iggy, shut up about my height; I am not short. Now give me the damn bag, you idiot." He just smirked down at me (if only I was taller . . .) smugly.

"Nope. You're gonna have to come up here and get it, short stuff."

I glared at him and brought my knee up quickly, getting him right in between the legs. I heard all of the males around us groan as Iggy dropped the bag, bending over, moaning as if I'd shot him.

"Max! Do you not want me to have children?" His voice was slightly squeaky as he aimed his head upward from his much lower position.

"Um, no, not really. Why mess up the gene pool with your mistake of a personality?" I said brightly, causing several people around us to laugh and mutter "Slaaaay!" Iggy straightened up and shot me the finger as I gloatingly picked up the bag, being as dramatic as possible. The motion was really only for everyone watching, because Iggy, of course, couldn't see it. His blindness and all. Iggy had been blind since he was a little kid—some sort of birth defect or whatever. He lived with a foster family on the outskirts of town, but they were thinking about adopting him. It was good, the poor kid. I had watched him go through about six different families since I had met him—once he even moved out of town. That was the worst four months of my life, though I'd never admit it to him. He'd never let me forget it. He'd been living with the family he was currently with for almost a year now—a long time in foster kid standard. He was happy, and I was happy he was happy. And that he was still dancing.

"Okay, guys," said Dylan, clapping his hands all authoritative-like, causing most of the guys to snicker at his pretense. I made my way over to the two other girls in the troupe, Lesley and Anastasia. Ana had her hair in a billion teeny braids, and the effect of the thin blonde ropes against her tan skin was stunning. Lesley's brown-almost-black hair was stiff and down, falling in natural waves that complimented her dark-chocolate-colored skin. She talked with a faint accent I couldn't place. Something African. They were dressed identically to me.

I reluctantly turned my attention away from them and back to Dylan. "We're going to walk down to our place now—we got a prime spot downtown. There'll be other dancers there, I'm sure, but we're the best, right?"

"Don't we know it!" Ana, Lesley, and I chorused. It was sort of our thing.

"Cool," Dyl finished up his little pep talk and gestured for us to follow them. Iggy was still holding himself where I had kicked him, and I tugged his arm in the right direction. He didn't need too much help, being blind, but for God's sake, the last thing I wanted was my partner for our epic solo, Piece Seven, to stumble out into the busy downtown streets and turn into road pizza. Luckily, that didn't happen, and we made it to our appointed spot on the Row with no trouble.

The Row was the street where all of the district's finest came to perform: musicians, dancers, magicians, theater troupes, bands, whatever. If it made noise and people wanted to watch it, it was on the Row. A few people whooped when Dyl showed us where we were booked for the day: the one and only Corner. The Corner was the coveted spot for anyone who wanted to perform on the Row—it was where the most people walked, the most people loitered, and the most people would come and watch, because only the best acts could even hope to get booked on the Corner. It was an honor that they (whoever "they" was...whoever decides that stuff) had even let us be here.

We had to live up to it.

Dylan left us standing on the curb as the girl that seemed to be monitoring who was performing on this stretch of the Row came waved him over. I watched as he conversed with her, noticing how she giggled at something he said, ticking off something on her clipboard while looking up at him through her lashes. I rolled my eyes. Why must girls act like complete bimbos around any guy in order to catch their attention?

I noticed how her face fell when Dylan walked back out to us, smirking slightly. He'd obviously been thinking what I had; we were often on the same wavelength.

"Come on you guys, set it up. You know the drill." We started unloading the gear bags. He waved an arm to catch the attention of a few of our group hanging a little ways back, Jack and Shawn. They immediately stopped chatting and mimicked the rest of us. Dylan monitored the unloading, making sure none of use decided to, like, bomb his precious stereo equipment. Performing outside on the streets meant extension cords. Lots of them. Shawn went to find an outlet.

The speakers were not fantastic, and the cords were just a little bit frayed...okay, a lot frayed. Dyl always told us never to touch them when they were plugged in, for fear of getting electrocuted right off our Converse. I knew that we didn't have much money. Dylan had basically raised himself, contrary to what I had first thought, and this dance group was all he had. We all chipped in, and we were more like a family than a dance troupe. But none of us were particularly well off, and these types of places were the norm for us.

Sometimes I'd sit out during one of our lessons and watch Dylan go through the routine with the group. It never failed to surprise me; we were amazing. Sure, I know it sounds cocky, but we were. Each step was in time with the beat, the dancers were all in perfect sync, the chemistry literally glowed as we danced. We were destined for better things than this.

I swallowed my feelings and picked up a speaker, moving it into place on one of the boundaries of the Corner. It was one of the unspoken rules: don't hog space, or you're liable to get your stuff smashed. We couldn't afford that.

When we were all set up, and mostly in place for the routine we had decided to try first, Dylan walked past me and took his place in front of us all.

"Okay, guys, this is it. I want this to really _be it._ I think we could get spotted here. It's the best place we've been to so far . . . I don't know. Just don't mess up you guys. Jack, to the left a little. Ana, you're behind Max, not Rico. Yes, there. Move it. Good." He turned back to the front, shuffling into his place next to me. I heard other members of the group moving too; we had to be in the right place for this to work. Nathan took his place behind the mixing board, a boombox loaded with the CD of the sets we had decided to use.

I took a few deep breaths. I heard Iggy do the same on the other side of me. I was rapidly running through the dance in my head; making sure I could remember each move. I always felt pressured for this opening dance; I was right at the front, the first anyone that came by would see. I closed my eyes briefly, telling myself to keep calm, it was just another performance.

"One...two...three..." Dylan muttered, and we all knew what to do to get the attention on us.

"KICK IT UP!" we all yelled in unison.

Then Nathan pressed Play.

OMNOM LIINNEEE BRREEAAKKKK ::D

"Oh _yeah,_ baby! We so aced that! High-fives!" Iggy whooped, jumping around as we walked through the small strip mall. He was practically skipping; still on the high of having completely aced out routine without a single mistake. Idiot. But I had to admit, Piece Seven had ended up the best we had ever done. Having a blind guy as a partner was actually a really huge benefit, because he had to rely on his senses to figure out where I was, making him more aware.

That didn't stop him from being obnoxious about it, however.

High-fives went around as we laughed and joked with each other. I didn't think we'd ever done as well during a performance as we did today. It felt like I was walking on air, like I was_ flying_. I hung back slightly to walk with Iggy and Lesley, the three of us giggling as we linked arms. This was partly to make sure Iggy didn't get lost, but mostly because we were _so damn happy _we didn't give a care what we looked like.

Suddenly, our whole group, all twelve of us swerved in unison into Taco Bell. I went with Ana and Jack to find enough seats while the others went up to order. I yelled to Iggy to get me the biggest thing on the menu as I lay on about four consecutive seats, making sure no-one else stole them. Jack and Ana did the same, and we lay there giggling as passersby gave us looks of confusion as to why three teenagers were lying across the seats at Taco Bell. We were used to strange looks, and by this time they were basically our drug. One of our mantras was "Staring people is a good thing!"

When the guys and Lesley came back with armfuls of food, we immediately sat up, freeing up the seats for everyone else. I jerked my ginormous burrito out of Iggy's hands and unwrapped it before he even had a chance to sit down in his seat next to me, sinking my teeth into it with a most distinctly un-girl-like, animalistic groan. But hey, I was hungry. I was in almost every set, and dancing like we did for three hours straight did not make for a small appetite.

"Guys, guys, guys, stop!" Dylan laughed, zipping open his dance bag. We all immediately knew what he was doing and unzipped ours as well, pulling out our special glasses. One of Iggy's foster families had been extremely well-off, but also extremely misguided. For whatever reason, one Christmas they had gotten a set of twelve shot glasses, each with one of our names printed on it in swirly font. As a joke, we had started bringing them to performances and doing toasts with Kool-Aid afterwards. Somehow, it had become a tradition, and we all whooped as Dylan pulled out four bottles of water and grape Kool-Aid instant powder packets. He mixed the drink up and poured a little in each of our glasses.

"To the coolest people ever!" Iggy hooted, holding his up. He had crossed out the delicate script reading "James" on his and written "Iggy" in red Sharpie. We all mimicked him, managing to choke out "Kick it up!" through our laughter before we all knocked back the Kool-Aid shots at the same time. Rico started choking, and Juan thumped him on the back, which really only made him laugh harder, and that didn't help his airway problems. Our ritual complete, we stored our purple-stained shot glasses back in our bags (I wrapped mine carefully in my legwarmers, in case Iggy tried to steal my bag again, though I was fairly sure he wouldn't after what I had done the first time) and dug into our absurd amount of food on the tables pushed haphazardly together in front of us.

These guys were my family: Dylan, Iggy, Nathan, Rico, Juan, Jack, Lesley, Ana, Jeremy, Kenny, and Marvo. I loved them, and I guessed I always would. We had been together for five years now, and at seventeen, I was starting to seriously question what I wanted to do with my life. But now wasn't the time to think about it. I took a giant bite of burrito, only to nearly spit it all over Marvo as he told a hilarious story.

It was always like this. We would go to the same sleazy Taco Bell. Then when we finished up all of our "meat" and "bean" burritos and tacos and such, we would throw everything away, bid goodbye to the cashiers (who all knew us by name by this point), and head over next door to Nirvana Part Deux: Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. I fingered the ten dollar bill I had in my pocket, already tasting a two-scoop cone of cookie dough and raspberry sorbet.

"Hey, Max," the young pimply guy at the counter said as I placed my order. He had the hots for me, I could tell, and had ever since we started coming here. I played along, for the time being, almost bursting out laughing when his eyes widened after I tossed my hair just the tiniest bit turning around to pick up change that had fallen. I collected my ice cream and walked away from him, feeling wicked. I hung out with too many boys to date one—it just wasn't in the cards. And I didn't mind that, though Ella did, saying I'd ruin her reputation. Me? Ruin _hers? _As if.

Dyl was examining a flyer when I got back to the table, and he handed it to me with an evil glint in his eyes. "Here's something for you to lust after."

"Give me that." I snatched it from him and looked at the pale blue paper.

**CALLING YOUNG TALENT!**

**The International Talent Agency is having its annual recruitment for the 2010 ITAC!**

**The International Talent Agency Competition is on a quest to find the unknown stars of tomorrow!**

**Agents will be recruiting in your hometown soon!**

**Competition location: London, England! 'Ello, mates! **

**Date: July 18**

**If you get approached, be there or be square!**

"Why does Max look like a puppy that wants attention?" Rico asked as he sat down with his bowl of three scoops. He looked over my shoulder at the flyer. "Ah. I get it. Dyl, did you give this to her? You are an evil bastard."

"I know," Dylan said proudly. They both knew that it was my absolute dream to get recruited to go to the ITAC. They only took the best, and whoever got picked had to go to this insane competition in whatever location they picked that year. Five kids would win scholarships to the best art school in the world: Keterlein, located in New York City. The competition was in less than a month.

"Oh, shut up," I told them, whacking them with Rico's spoon, which I stole out of his ice cream, then gave it back with some of Dylan's blonde hair tangled in it.

"God, Max, gross," Rico said, laughing, tossing it in the trash can and going to get another one, as everyone else came pouring into the table. Dylan didn't say anything more about the ITAC, a fact which I was grateful for, because the rest of the guys would have teased me just as bad. They knew my obsession. They took full advantage of it.

At seven o'clock or so, we finally split up and walked back to our cars, which were scattered all around downtown. Incidentally, Iggy's foster mom was supposed to pick him up at the same gas station my Volvo was parked at, so we walked back through the Row together. A drummer now occupied the Corner, banging away on paint buckets. I dropped some change at his feet and we kept walking. I still had the ITAC flyer folded in my pocket.

"Iggy, Stephanie is..." I called his foster mother by her first name as we got to the gas station.

"About forty feet due east. I know, Max. I can hear the engine."

"Ah, okay." I always forgot Iggy's close-to-superpowers. I watched him walk to the car, trailing a hand over the hoods of cars to make sure he didn't run into anything, and didn't get into my own until I was sure he was in the car. I watch out for him, however much he annoys me.

The drive home was short and simple, and Ella had already gone to sleep over at Nudge's by the time I got back.

"How was it?" my mom asked, hugging me and handing me a chocolate-chip cookie. Though I was still full of ice-cream, I accepted it, because she made the best cookies ever. Ever. Ever. Valencia Martinez was the Cookie Queen. And she didn't even need a man to do it (my dad walked out when I was two, right after Ella was born).

When I was safely back in my room, ready to take a shower and listen to music until I went to bed, I took the flyer out of my pocket one more time. I looked at it longingly. I wanted this so badly it hurt.

Then in the next second I realized how stupid I sounded. I threw the flyer on my cluttered desk and pulled off my shirt, wanting to wash the sweat off myself, still feeling the happy glow from our success on the Corner.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer : We do not own. Comprende?**

**Blackiee : FangIsFexellent, did you note my amazing use of Spanish there? (goes to check if it was actually Spanish) and in case you did not notice, b4k4 r3dux has changed her name. Take note people!**

**FIF: Excellent work, blackiee. I applaud you. And yes, for those who are mentally challenged, I am no longer b4k4-r3dux. I got bored of it. So sue me. If blackiee changes hers to .Radiators it will make my day. And anyone who wants to murder James Patterson, just pop over to my page and review my story "This Is Not Fang's Fault!" Because you may be able to take part in the fangirl hoard I am collecting for a murder plot, led by Fang himself. Now, without further ado. ON TO THE CHAPTER!**

**Blackiee: Did you really just do an author advert on MY profile? **

**FIF: It's my story, too. And you wanted in. **

**Blackiee: True. True. Now have fun with the chapter!**"_Rhett! Rhett! Don't leave me!" _Iggy adopted a falsetto and stood on a chair, clasping his hands to his chest and batting his blonde eyelashes. The class was in stitches. The teacher was not amused. However, it was the last day of school, and it's not like we were doing anything anyway. Except, of course, watching Gone With The Wind, possibly the dumbest movie known to man.

* * *

"Mr. Griffiths, please put your gluteus in a chair," Mr. Rochelle said in a dry voice, fixing Iggy with his spectacled glare. Anyone else would sit down. Iggy? Not so much.

"But Mr. Rochelle! Rhett's leaving me again! And my Bonnie is gone, and the South has fallen, and my life is just so terrible!" He started sobbing dramatically into his hands.

"Ig, go back to Tara," Kenny drawled, poking him in the leg with a pencil, causing him to yell in surprise, because he of course couldn't see it coming.

"Seriously," I added. "Do us all a favor."

"You don't love my acting skills?" he said, sounding offended, sitting back down, putting a hand to his chest and twisting his face into a grotesque expression.

"No," Kenny, Lesley and I said at the same time.

He gave us a look of mock despair. I reciprocated with a death glare of my own, then said "I'm glaring harder than you," to him, making him pout, turning his face so the class could see his expression. They all sniggered at him, and I silently applauded as the bell rang and we slung our bags over our shoulders.

"Come on, hot stuff, what's our next class?" I elbowed Iggy as we battled through the crowd that had materialized right outside of the classroom door, taking hold of his shirt lightly to make sure he didn't get swallowed by the freshmen swarming to God knew where.

"We don't have a class next, shorty, it's lunch." He this time elbowed me, before resting his arm on my head and steering me in the direction of the cafeteria. I scowled up at him, ducking out of his way and moving next to Ana, who had managed to catch up with us in the corridor.

"Hey!" She wrapped her arm around my shoulders, yanking me against her bony side. "What did you just have?"

"Chemistry." She winced. "We watched Gone With The Wind."

"Aah, I'm so glad I took Bio, dude. We watched Mean Girls. It was epic, you should have seen the look on Jake Spencer's face! If only I had a camera . . ." She trailed off in a wistful voice as we ducked and weaved through the crowd. I laughed; Jake Spencer was the most popular guy in the school, the quarterback of the football team. Thinking about him watching such a girly film totally made my day. He was probably sneaking looks at the hot girls that played the Plastics when he thought he wouldn't get caught by his football buddies.

School lunches don't get any better on the last day, so we were doomed to yet another day of a selection between fake fish, questionable chicken strips, hot dogs that bounced (Rico tried), and cookies that didn't even deserve to be called such. But it was that or starve, and we had important things to do that day that required full stomachs. I watched the door while Jeremy got my lunch—if Dylan didn't show, I swear I would have murdered him.

However, he did. Dylan, of course, was the only one that had already graduated from our hell of a high school, the only high school available to us in the downtown where we lived. So all eleven of us went to the same school. It was pretty useful at times. I slapped him a high-five when he came in the door.

"Hey, shorty," he said, making the second time in three minutes I'd been called that. I kicked him in the shin as hard as I could, but it barely seemed to faze him. I grimaced and he laughed at me again. "Where's the food?"

As always, the guys had basically just gotten a mountain of food and we ate it buffet-style, passing plates and stealing things from each other. Dylan got permission to eat with us today because of the fact that we were going to perform a set for the school right before final bell, and he was the captain of the dance team and everything. I cracked a bag of chips and threw a few at Iggy, sitting across from me. He jumped in surprise and proceeded to hurl a chicken finger at me with perfect aim. It made it right down my t-shirt, and everyone started laughing.

"What'd I hit?" Iggy asked.

"Let's just say you scored a point in cleavage basketball." Shawn was nearly throwing up with laughing as I shook the piece of meat out of my shirt. Iggy pumped his fist in the air and cackled in triumph. I circled the table quietly and shoved ice from my tea down his pants.

If you've never heard Iggy scream, I can't describe the sound. I'm going to go for a general "AEEEEIIEEIIGHGHGHHHHHHH" right now, but whatever it was had the whole table with their foreheads in their plates, ribs nearly breaking with how hard we were laughing. Iggy jumped up and put me in a headlock, messing up my layered brown hair with one of his massive hands, then pinned me down on the floor and covered my eyes. I tried to get up, but it was useless.

"Excuse me," an icy voice said from behind us. I looked up and around, and so did Iggy, though he couldn't see the person. Oh, dear lord.

"What's up, Brigid?" Nathan asked easily, putting his Converse on the table and leaning into her personal space. She moved her miniskirted ass away from him with a look of disgust and gazed down at me, still pinned to the floor and being held down by Iggy.

"Will you two please stop having sex on the floor?" she said in a deceptively innocent voice, her red hair fluttering. I mean, _fluttering. _In a hot, bustling cafeteria with no wind to _make _it flutter. It must be in the Prep Code that invisible wind follows you wherever you go. "I'd like to get to my seat."

My face flushed, but Iggy just picked himself up gracefully and drew up to his full height, almost a foot taller than her. I just barely saw her flinch, and wanted to cheer.

"Would you prefer _you _be down on that floor?" he said in a seductive voice, and her face went redder than her hair, I swear it. I was almost peeing myself trying not to laugh. Only Iggy. "Because I can arrange that."

"You are such a _perv, _James Griffiths!" Lissa piped up. Oh. I hadn't even realized that she had been standing behind the Queen Bitch. If Brigid was the queen, then Lissa was the wannabe princess.

"Oh, sorry Lissa, I didn't _see _you there." Iggy had recognized her voice—it wasn't that hard. The girl talked like how a fast train brakes: shrill, squealing, and annoying. With lots of sparks. The venom in that one word he uttered made it doubly hard to not laugh. Iggy wasn't done, though. "But I love the way you say my name. Care to take Max's place? Your friend doesn't seem too interested." Her hair, which matched Brigid's, looked pale against the fiery blush that spread across her face. You could practically feel the heat. Go, Iggy!

"Who would ever?" Brigid sneered, trying to redeem herself, but Lesley stood up and delivered the final hit.

"If you must know," she said in her lilting accent, taking Iggy's hand and drawing him closer to her, "Iggy's my new love. And I have to tell you, he's really _quite _good when it comes to—"

"Ugh, you guys are all disgusting!" Lissa squealed, then pushed past Iggy, nearly stepping on me. I grabbed her ankle, precariously resting on a very high-heeled sandal, and she tripped and almost fell, ruining her dramatic exit. I then bared my teeth at Brigid, who was passing, and snarled. She gave me a look of deepest loathing and stalked off after Lissa.

I got up and sat back down, and we looked at each other for about two silent seconds before we started laughing so hard we couldn't breathe.

* * *

"Dude. Come on, we have to go!" I kicked Iggy on the arm from my position on the table. It was the second to last lesson, and we had done absolutely nothing for the past hour. We were going to watch the horror that is Gone With The Wind, again, but I managed to put a stop to that one.

Mainly with the aid of Iggy, a pen and a piece of fudge.

So now our small class of ten was lounging around in various points throughout the room. I was lying on a table shoved against the wall, staring blankly at the wall, with Iggy sat on the floor next to me.

I grabbed the wall and sat up, my legs dangling either side of Iggy, who was unknowingly staring at Jenny Innings, a girl who was . . . aesthetically challenged. I mean, I'm not one to judge, but this poor girl . . . braces, untamable hair and a serious lack of fashion sense (this is coming from Miss Show Me A Skirt And Die).

Jenny turned round to see his sleepy expression, and blushed madly. I smashed my legs together, hitting him on the shoulders with my knees and making him jump up in surprise.

"Come on, dipstick, we needed to be at the stage five minutes ago. Dylan's gonna slaughter us." I reached up to grab his hair and proceeded to make my way to the door. I saw Rico jump up from the other end of the room and untangle himself from the arms of his girlfriend Bryonie and heading over to Iggy's side.

He whispered in his ear how he was staring at Jenny earlier, a devilish smirk on his face, and watched as Iggy went suddenly pale as we walked out of the door. I laughed and slapped him lightly on the arm.

"Don't be so judgmental. And anyway, you can't even see her and it wouldn't harm you to go and get a girlfriend. You know what they say, it's what's on the inside that counts."

"Hello, mother Max." He mumbled, and I this time slapped him harder, before grabbing his arm and taking down the unfamiliar route to the auditorium. It wasn't often we ventured there; it was always full of the Drama Club, who were honestly beyond irritating, what with their fake British accents and Hollister gear.

I could hear Dyl's raised voice from the end of the corridor and sped up suddenly; dragging Iggy with me, causing his sneaker-clad feet to stick on the grubby floor and send him flying headfirst into a wall.

Thank God for my ninja-like abilities, yanking him back so he missed a painful collision.

"Stop being such a spaz," I teased him as we continued to jog down the narrow hallway.

We burst through the doors in time to see Dylan and the rest of the crew stood in a little cluster just below the stage, with Dylan waving his arms wildly, looking worried. I'm telling ya, the day that guy doesn't have a panic attack, I will shoot myself. And then him. Because the world will have officially been screwed.

"Where the HELL have you been?" Dylan screeched. I gave him a flat glare, watching his heaving chest and wide eyes.

"Dude, calm. We're all of five minutes late. It's not like we skipped out." I rolled my eyes, walking forward with Iggy and Rico until we had joined the rest of them.

"That's irrelevant! What if you're even later next time? What if – " I jumped forward to wrap my hand around his mouth, effectively stopping him from speaking. He gave me the death glare and I smirked.

Then he licked my hand, the freak.

"Ew ew ew! You disgusting freak!" I shrieked, taking my hand back and wiping it on Iggy's shirt repeatedly. I heard everyone else laugh, one or two of the guys even high-fiving Dylan; everyone loved to get one over on me.

"Do I even want to know what Max is wiping on my shirt?" Iggy said in a scared voice. I grinned madly.

"No. Not at all." He winced.

"Okay, okay, as amusing as making Max scream is—" Dylan started.

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID," screamed Jeremy and Marvo. I glared at them and they took two steps back, looking frightened.

"Anyway..." Dylan tried hard to keep from laughing, but it really didn't work too well, and his next words came out as sort of a choked snort. "We better...get...rehearsing..." He took a deep breath, and suddenly the old Dylan was back, nervously spastic but totally lovable. "Everyone go get changed...if you didn't bring your Converse, I am going to rip out your spine and beat you with it."

Everyone brought their Converse, so no spine-ripping went down, thank the lord that protects crazy street dancers. We all brought everything, in fact, because our meager reps were at stake. We weren't performing for strangers—we were going to be dancing in front of multitudes of people that we had known for three years and would know for one more. So if we sucked, we were forever gonna be known as "those poser dancer people."

Not that we cared about our reps or whatever, but none of us were posers, and didn't really want to be known as such.

"Alright!" Dylan clapped his hands like a typical teacher, and I rolled my eyes, exchanging a meaningful look with Juan and Kenny before turning back to look at him. We paid attention to him, after all, even if we teased him to death for acting like he was ten years older, instead of just two. "Max and Iggy, I want you over there practicing Piece Seven. The rest of you, come over here and we'll work on Lay the Beats." They nodded and dispersed, me and Iggy breaking off from the group. I led him to a corner where we could practice on the stage, and he spent a few minutes wandering around, getting his position and bearings down so he would be able to face the right direction. Dyl gave us a CD player with a copy of our set disc already loaded. Iggy and I would be going last. As in _last. _As in, we would be the very last things that everyone would see about three seconds before the final bell rang.

We were kind of an unorthodox street dancing troupe, more actual dancing than hip-hop kinda stuff. I wasn't too good with the hip-hop anyway. Juan, Marvo, and Kenny did a real hip-hop set about halfway through the performance we would be doing today, but I usually stuck with the very energetic normal dancing. Piece Seven was a sort of modern-jazz thing, a lot of partnering involved, lifts and stuff. I even had my own special costume that I used when we did it on a stage. It was already set behind the curtain—a sparkly shirt with a matching top hat.

What? I have a weakness for top hats.

Iggy and I ran through Piece Seven a few times, but we had it down so well already there was really no point in doing it again. We joined in the group rehearsal of Lay the Beats, then when that was done we did an entire run-through of the whole performance. It was pretty damn epic, if I may say.

The principal's dry voice carried over the intercom, sounding like he swallowed a Brillo pad...it didn't make for a very pleasant sound.

"_All students please report to the auditorium. I repeat, all students to the auditorium at this time. Thank you." _

"Oh, shit!" Nathan said loud enough to draw stares from a passing janitor, yanking the CD out of the player and sprinting up the stairs to the tech booth to give it to the pimply guy working the lights and sound. We just had a few simple cues—we weren't accustomed to performing in such luxury. Like, with an actual floor. And a stereo system we didn't have to bring ourselves. And no Cords of Death threatening to trip us up.

Dylan gave us the usual pre-show pep talk. "I have the Bus," he said when it was done. "Tacos and ice cream after?" We all nodded, but groaned at the mention of the Bus. That was the car that he had bought for himself after he turned eighteen. Though I think calling it a car would be an understatement. It does fit all of us, however, so we wouldn't need separate rides to Taco Bell. I would probably end up sitting on Iggy's lap, though, in order to squeeze everyone in. Again. I, for the millionth time, cursed my lack of freakish tallness.

"Maybe Brigid will come meet us there," Iggy said, putting a hand over his crotch. Everyone burst out laughing again, so hard the microphones squealed in protest and the tech guy glared at us.

"Waaay out of your league. Sorry, Stud." Juan placed a hand on Iggy's shoulder, and Iggy stuck out a lip, pouting, his big blue eyes open wide. We didn't dwell on Iggy's sexual problems, however, and went backstage as people started pouring into the auditorium. Dylan stayed out, fiddling with the microphone, earning another hard look from the tech guy as it squealed again. He jumped back and stopped touching it. We had worked out a routine for the introduction, and it was going to be an epic start to an epic show.

When everyone seemed to be in place, even the teachers, standing around the edges of the auditorium like they were expecting a riot to break out or something, Dylan spoke, and everyone looked up at him. I heard a whole bunch of female whispers and rolled my eyes at Jack, who made a gagging motion with a finger.

"Hey, guys!" Dylan said to the audience. "I'm Dylan, a bunch of you know that, and I graduated here last year. Today I've come back because a group that is very special to me is going to put on a show! Are you guys ready?" There were a few mumbled "uh huh"s from the crowd. "Oh, come on. You guys can do better than that. ARE YOU READY?" This time a whole bunch of people said "YEEES" pretty loudly. Dylan decided it was good enough. "Alright, without further ado! I give you, JACK!"

Jack ran out onstage, did an epic round-off, and ended smack in his place in the lineup for Lay the Beats, our first set.

"RICO!" He rolled the R, and Rico flipped onstage with his insane acrobatic skills.

"JEREMY!"

"JUAN!"

"NATHAN!"

"KENNY!"

"MARVO!"

"IGGY!" People gasped when Iggy ran onstage, because of his blindness and all, but the Igster was so well-adjusted he ended up perfectly in his spot, about four feet behind Rico, finishing it off with a backflip that took him facing forward.

"JACK!"

"ANA!"

"LESLEY!"

"And, last but not least, MAX!" I had worked on this set of tricking for months to get it right, and now was the time to do it. I started off running a few steps, then immediately went into a cartwheel, round-off, then two back handsprings that landed my Conversed feet in my spot, drawing applause. I grinned as I stood in my spot at the very front, glad I had pulled it off. Dylan backed off and took his spot right behind me.

"Ready?" he muttered. "One...two...three..."

And we all threw our hands up, shouting "Kick it up!" for all we were worth, and the pimply tech guy laid down the music.

It seemed like we could do no wrong with this performance. Every set was better than the last. And when Iggy and I stepped out for Piece Seven, we literally set the stage on fire.

Well, I guess not literally. Because that would suck.

The very last position in Piece Seven had me straight over Iggy's head, held up in a cocky position that would have been impossible to pull off had Iggy not had such muscular arms, and the audience exploded into cheers.

Then the final bell rang, and they all cheered harder.

Iggy put me down and slapped me a discreet high-five, and the rest of the troupe came out onstage, Dylan yelling "THANK YOU" in the general direction of the microphone before coming and wrapping me in a hug that nearly broke my ribs. "You were freaking _amazing," _he told me after letting me go, leaving me gasping and massaging my bruised bones. "You too, horny Igster."

"Anyone see Brigid?" he responded with barely a beat, and I started laughing again, making my ribs hurt more. A tap on my shoulder made me spin around, ready to leave a handprint across the face of whichever guy off the team had snuck up on me. But it wasn't anyone I knew. I'd never seen this guy before in my life.

"Are you Maximum Martinez?" he asked in a semi-formal voice.

"Um, yeah...and you are?"

"Jeb Batchelder. I'm from the International Talent Agency."

Just those last six words were enough to make me focus exclusively on him. I took in his appearance; modern looking blue wash jeans with a black tee and blazer. He looked to be in his late thirties, and as I was taking this is he withdrew a small plastic card from his jacket pocket.

He held it out to me and I quickly took it, scanning it and realizing that this guy was legit. I looked up at him again.

"So . . . you're from the Agency for . . .?" I trailed off under his gaze.

I know, I know, the great Maximum Martinez not dominating a conversation? Not whipping out snide remarks? But this guy was legit; if he thought I was the real deal, I could be in with a chance of getting to England.

"I was told that there was to be a performance here . . ." He looked around the room distastefully. "And that Maximum Martinez would be here also. I had it on good authority that you were worth my time." His gaze landed on me at last, his pale, watery blue eyes boring into my brown ones. "So I was given permission by your principal to sit and watch today."

I instantly felt worried; had I not performed as well as I thought I did? I mean, it felt like I didn't miss a step, that everything was in time, that is was-

"I am pleased to say that they were right, Miss Martinez. I was quite impressed by your talents; you seem to have a passion for dancing." I saw the hint of a smile race his stiff features, and I felt my heart soar.

"..." For once in my life, I didn't know what to say.

"I was also informed of your desire to get into the International Talent Agency Competition . . . And I would be delighted to offer you an interview at our Philadelphia office sometime next week."

I felt my eyes widen. I was being offered something that no other had ever had; the chance to get an interview without a previous audition.

Usually, anyone willing to enter the competition had to wait and see where the nearest audition was, before travelling there, hopefully in time. Then there was the panel of judges to face, usually consisting of around five extremely talented people who had previously won the competition with honors. The fact that I had skipped out on this nerve-wracking part made the whole process so much easier.

The age limit for the Competition was sixteen, meaning that I was only eligible for entering last year. I had tried to get my mom to take me to the auditions in New York, but she had complained about how New York was far too busy at this time of year, crowded with tourists. So I was planning on finding the auditions this year, which were being held in Washington D.C.

But now I didn't have to.

"Th-thankyou! Thankyou so much! You have no idea what this means to me, seriously!" I gushed in my happiness, grinning madly up at this guy who has, for lack of a better way to explain it, made my dreams come true.

He smiled ever so slightly. "You don't have to thank me, Miss. I would thank your friend over there." He pointed to Dylan, who was chatting with Nathan at the back of the hall. He noticed us speaking and gave me a wide smile and thumbs up. "He's the one who contacted me and asked me to come and see you in action.

He handed me a small card with a dotted line on it along with a pen. "If you could write your number down here please, Miss Martinez, then I can contact you when the details are finalised."

I quickly scribbled down my cell number, rolling up and down on the balls of my feet in my excitement. I handed the card and pen back to him with a stupid grin still plastered on my face.

"Here you go, and thank you so, so much Mr. . . . Batchelder." He smiled back at me for a brief moment, before turning and getting swallowed in the crowd of students leaving the hall still.

I stood still for a few seconds, allowing what had just happened to sink in. Then I turned on my heel and sprinted towards the back of the hall, where Dylan was still standing. He turned around just in time to throw out his arms as I leapt forward, sending the pair of us tumbling down to the floor.

"Thank you thank you thank you thank you! I love you Dylan!" I shrieked in his ear, wrapping my arms around him with difficulty and hugging him as hard as I could.

"Hey, s'okay shorty. Anything to help." He dropped a kiss on the top of my head, and I drew back and flicked him in the head.

"I'm grateful, but not _that _grateful," I smirked at him. He looked a little hurt for about two seconds, then I hugged him again so tightly I heard his breath whoosh out of his lungs and tackled him down, pushing him into the first row of seats.

"Anyone care to tell me why Max and Dylan are rolling around on the floor together?" Iggy casually asked, sitting backwards on one of the crappy plastic chairs that he found near the door.

"Dylan got her a place in the ITAC." Nathan said, rolling his eyes as me; I was still hugging Dylan with all I had, looking like an idiot on the floor.

"Oh." Was all Iggy had time to say before I had jumped off Dylan and was heading towards Iggy at 100 miles per hour, almost flying because I was honestly that happy.

"Dear God, Max, I know you love me, but it's just not polite to rape the blind guy," Iggy said, returning the hug and speaking into my hair. Damn my shortness, once and for all.

"I don't care," I said into his chest, and he laughed and ruffled my hair in pure Iggy fashion, then took me away from him.

"Okay, guys, seriously," he said, and everyone made their way down to us, slapping me high-fives and congratulations. "I need some Brigid love. Let's go to Taco Bell!"

And we all piled into the Bus, with a complete lack of Brigid-ness, much to Iggy's dismay and sadness. I told him to just go get it on with the Taco Bell clerk and he nodded distractedly.

And yes, even though I had just gotten my life dream, I still had to sit on Iggy's lap as we drove to Taco Bell.

* * *

**We wrote this in two days. A record? We think so.**


	3. Chapter 3

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**Blackiee : so. We hope you like this chapter . . Despite its filler-ness**

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"Max, do you own anything besides t-shirts and jeans?" Iggy was rifling through my closet like the annoying best friend he is, throwing stuff at me routinely. My room was basically an explosion-packing to fly to Philly was way more trouble than it was worth.

I rolled my eyes, before remembering that Iggy couldn't see it. "I'm rolling my eyes, Igtard." I ignored his huff of indignation as I pulled out another drawer and dropped it on my bed next. I started rummaging through the t-shirts in vain, trying to find something at least vaguely un-t-shirtlike. I sighed, actually beginning to throw clothes behind me in my haste; I had to be at the airport in three hours and I was stressed.

"Do I even want to know what's on my head?" I heard from behind me. I turned to see Iggy with one of my electric blue tank tops hanging off of his head, a slightly worried expression on his face.

"Oh, I should take that." I grabbed it off his forehead and tossed it in the duffel bag behind me. "ELLA!" I called. She came running in, blushing slightly when she saw Iggy there. She's had a crush on him for. Like. Approximately ever. She's good at hiding it though.

"Jeez, Max. Who died?"

"No one. What the hell do I wear to an interview?" Iggy rolled his eyes and made a gagging motion with one finger, and I threw a soft punch at him as I watched my sister in desperation. She was looking around my room with calculating eyes, figuring out something.

"Do you still have those black pants?" she asked me. "The tight ones?"

"Here," said Iggy. "I would recognize the feel of these anywhere." He handed up the skinny half-denim, half-leather pants. Ella had said I could pull them off, but I just couldn't see it. She had forced me to buy them anyway. I had worn them exactly once.

"These? Are you serious. With _what?" _I didn't own anything that went with those pants. Nada. But Ella reached down and pulled out a shirt that I had forgot I owned, a deep purple thing, and then a jean jacket. She handed the bundle to me, and I gaped at her.

"I've been searching this room for _hours, _with Iggy helping me," I told her in disbelief. "And you can come in here and put together something in _fifteen seconds." _

"What can I say? I'm amazing," she said smugly, making to leave. "Do something with your hair," she said. I had forgotten to brush it, and it was sticking up funny. With only Iggy the blind wonder with me, I had completely ignored it.

She walked out with one last glance at Iggy before closing the door softly behind her. I turned to my blind best friend with an exasperated expression, not that he could see it.

"Never will I understand my sister." He nodded slowly in agreement.

"Right. Uhm, hair. What should I do with it?" This was proof of my lack of fashion sense; I was asking my _blind_ friend on how to style my hair. He sat himself in my black egg chair and crossed his legs leisurely.

"Well." He drew out the word slowly, before I reached him in one stride and whacked him upside the head on my way to my bed, flopping down on it. "Hey! Yeah, well, why don't you just do what you usually do?"

"What? Leave it looking like a rats nest?" Just because I made sure my hair looked nice for a performance didn't mean I bothered with it in my spare time.

"No. Like, natural." Wow. Such a help. I voiced my opinion colorfully as I sat up on the edge of my bed, looking down at my pale blue carpet.

"Don't insult the blind kid." I ignored him as I looked at my now almost-full holdall. It was a tiny thing, only big enough for a couple of outfits and a washbag. It now held my pajamas, my toiletries in a carrier bag and a spare change of clothes. I was still holding Ella's outfit under my arm, and I threw the items with perfect aim to land on top of the unzipped bag.

I stood, reaching over to my bedside cabinet and grabbing my battered hairbrush, pulling it through my tangles so it hung smooth down my back before tying it up with an elastic band, to keep it away from my face. "Better?" I asked Iggy sarcastically.

"Much," he said, playing along. "I can see the improvement." I zipped up the bag and tossed it out the bedroom door and down the stairs, so it landed by the door. We would be driving to the airstrip in...two and a half hours. I was starting to hyperventilate.

"Max, sit down before you fall over," said Iggy, hearing my shallow breaths. I took a helpless look at the bed, covered in clothes and stuff I barely recognized, then sat down abruptly on him. He groaned in pain and muttered something about my bony ass before shifting over so there was enough room for both of us on the oversized chair.

"So we've been all over the me territory lately," I told him, drawing up my knees. "What about you? How's Stephanie and them working out?" I studied his face carefully for a reaction, and was relieved when I saw him smile slightly, his pale blue eyes fixed forward.

"They're fine...great actually."

"Are they still thinking about...you know?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding his head. His shaggy blonde hair bobbed. We didn't dare say the word "adoption" out loud, for fear that we would jinx everything for him. That would be the best thing that had happened to Iggy since I joined the dance troupe, ha ha. Being constantly shunted around from foster family to foster family had been tough on him, though he didn't show it to anyone but me. I was the only one who knew about his "list." He said that every foster kid kept one somewhere on them. His was on his shoe, scratched with a safety pin on the underside. It was a list of all the families that had taken him in and then made him leave. It was sad that he even had to keep one.

"That's good then, right?"

"Of course," he told me, his voice suddenly happier. He pulled on my ponytail, and I smacking him in the neck, making him laugh. "So, anything new in the life of Max?"

"You know I would tell you if there was."

"No, not if you thought I'd tease you about it. Which I would. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't tell me." He pulled my ponytail again. "So let's start again." He adopted a very, very gay-sounding voice, the kind flamboyant male designers in dress shops use. "What's the latest gossip?"

"What kind of gossip?" I asked innocently, playing dumb.

"Any boy crushes, any hot news." He kept on the voice.

"That is so very creepy, Ig. Lose it and I _might _tell you."

"Fine!" he said quickly, reverting to his own voice. "Tell meee."

I looked up at him wickedly. "Nothing." He groaned in exasperation and tackled me down onto the floor, though my landing was somewhat cushioned by the Clothing Explosion shrapnel that had taken refuge underneath the chair.

"Max, you realize you're never had a boyfriend in your seventeen years of life," he said, sitting on me. It didn't feel good, seeing as Iggy weighs about fifty pounds more than what I do.

"Shut up," I gasped from under him and shoved him off me.

"Are you sure you're not going to take Brigid away from me?" he asked in a worried tone of voice, and I slapped him again, causing him to laugh wickedly.

"Lissa, on the other hand . . ." I watched Iggy's shocked expression and began I laughing. "Yeah, right." I managed to get out between giggles.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position next to Iggy, staring at the mess that was supposed to be my room. It would take me forever and a day to clean this up.

Because I was so going to clear this up. Psh.

I noticed my clock on my bedside table. I had just over two hours until me and Mom would be making a move, and despite all that time there was a great chance I would end up at least half an hour late. And the fact I was still in the massive, oversized white shirt that had once belonged to Iggy that I used as nightwear didn't help.

"I have to get dressed." I pointedly looked at Iggy, despite knowing the look was wasted on him. After a few seconds of silence I think he must have felt my gaze, as he spoke up.

"Maxi, I'm _blind_, in case it slipped your notice. I can't see a thing." he said in a condescending tone.

I sighed. "Any excuse to see a girl get changed, eh? You perv."

"Me? A perv? Never."

"Mnnhmn." I rolled my eyes as I stood up and knelt on the edge of my bed, rummaging through the mountains of clothing piled high. Earlier as I was waiting for Iggy to arrive, I, all by myself I might add, picked out an outfit for the flight to Philly. I peeled off the massive t-shirt and small shorts I wore underneath and threw on my outfit.

Pale blue skinny jeans that Ella got me for my seventeenth birthday paired with a slightly oversized black shirt. I could already hear Ella's shrieks as she saw the top, purely because it didn't cling to my body like glue.

"Done." I mumbled as I searched through the pile of clothes again, this time is search of my battered red converse, finding them and pulling them on over my socks.

"Thank God! I mean, I really don't know why it takes girls so long to get dressed, you ju-"

I quickly glanced at the clock and spoke over him. "I was two minutes, Igtard."

"Oh."

"Yeah." I ignored his annoyed expression and stalked over to my wardrobe, pulling out my checkered coat and throwing it on Iggy's head.

"Look after that until we go." He rolled his sightless eyes but otherwise said nothing, removing the coat from his head and smoothing his rumpled blonde hair.

"Have you even eaten anything yet?" he asked me, and I stopped dead, realizing that no, I had not. "I didn't think so...don't starve yourself. You're too skinny already."

"Come on, Igster," I told him. "Let's go get something."

Ten minutes later we were sitting in a McDonalds not far from my house—even with my internal freakout, we could probably have time to eat lunch and get back. Iggy was inhaling a Diet Coke, but all of a sudden I wasn't hungry. I picked at my burger, my mouth turned upward in slight distaste. Iggy, damn him of the unnatural hearing abilities, noticed the lack of me stuffing my face and got that exasperated expression on his face, which meant that he was about to chew me out.

"Max, you know you're going to make this and we're gonna have to survive without you when you go off to England," he said in a very un-Iggy-like manner. "Dylan knows it, I know it...even Brigid, my lover, knows that you're amazing."

"Theoretically, you wouldn't know, because you can't see me," I told him, and he rolled his eyes.

"Shaddap, short stuff. I do have four other senses."

"Really? I would never have guessed."

"Psh."

I ignored Igtard and returned to picking at my burger, taking of each of the sesame seeds off of the top of the bap. I soon had a little pile of them next to my orange Fanta. I noticed how Iggy was innocently (psh, yeah right, the day Iggy is innocent I'll burn my Converse) eating his beef burger, staring with gusto at the seat next to me. He was good, but not brilliant.

"Hey, Iggy, I don't know what the chair did to you but there's no need to leer at it so much with that ugly mug of yours." I said casually, putting a hand over my mouth to stifle the giggles.

His expression fell. "That's right, make fun of the blind boy. You know, I would have thought that as my best friend you would . . ." I stopped concentrating on Iggy's pity parade as I started lining up all the tiny seeds on the edge of my tray. I moved my drink and uneaten burger out of the way and used both my hands to flick each one at Iggy's face with perfect precision.

I watched as about ten hit his face at once due to my epic ninja-like skills, his tirade stopping as he spluttered.

"What is this?" I just giggled and flicked the rest at him. _Hard._ And I know that at least 70% made a comment in your head somewhat related to 'that's what she said'.

"That's what you get for messing with the queen," I told him, flicking the last seed and taking a sip of my drink, almost choking at his expression.

"There we go," he said, rolling his eyes. "That's the Max I know."

I realized that somehow, through torturing the Igster, that I felt a whole lot better about the day. Talking with Iggy often had that effect on me—it took away some of the nervousness that I always felt before stuff like this. Well, not stuff like this. This was bigger than anything I'd ever had to do. Ever.

Iggy pressed a button on the watch that his foster mother had gotten for him, and it said in a mechanical voice "One. Fifty. Two. PM." It kind of creeped me out, but it was really useful for him—he didn't have to rely on other people to figure out stuff like the time or date. "We better get going," he said as the watch shut up. Don't you have like an hour before you have to leave for the airstrip?"

Oh, crap. We had been here, messing around, longer than I thought. I still had to finalize packing and make sure my mom was ready to go. As a vet, she often got distracted at the office, and stayed later than she realized. I prayed to the god of good luck that today she would have her head screwed on straight, so I wouldn't have to go drive to get her. I already had to go drop Iggy off before going back home—and that would take away fifteen precious minutes from my tight schedule.

We stood up and dumped our rubbish on our way out of the building, turning the corner onto my street. If we walked quickly, we could be at my house in under ten minutes, then another fifteen to drop off Igtard, then another fifteen back, then sort out my bag, then get Mom . . .

I started panicking. I was seriously running out of time, and my breathing became shallow once more. Iggy heard and sped up, holding onto my arm as he did so. I caught up with him, guiding him with the arm he was holding as we headed to the end of the street.

We managed to get back to my house in just over five minutes, and I didn't even look at the front door; pushing Iggy towards my midget car as I jumped over the hood to the other side. Yes, I did actually do that. Ninja skills.

My poor car must have had a serious grudge on me my then, as I slammed the gearstick into drive, ignoring the noises of protest it made as I hurtled onto the road.

"Seriously Max, be a tortoise."

"_Excuse me?"_ My eyes strayed for a moment to see Iggy, slouched in his seat next to me.

"Yeah. You know, the story, with the tortoise, the hare. Slow and steady wins the race?" I sighed. Trust Iggy to use a story like that in a situation like this.

"Tortoises are ugly, and I am not," I said, keeping my eyes on the road, however much I wanted to smack him. "And my skin isn't anywhere near that bad."

"You sure about that? ...JEEZUM!" I had succumbed to the temptation and hit him on the forehead, and in the process nearly swerved off the pavement and onto some poor yuk's yard. Iggy grabbed onto the overhead handle and turned pale.

"Sorry, sorry," I muttered, focusing again, trying to stop the adrenaline from flooding through me. It wasn't too far to the house where Stephanie and them lived, but it seemed like ages with Iggy making small noises of fear every time I went over a bump. "Oh, come on, scaredy-cat. Chill."

"Sorry if I don't totally love your driving abilities," he quipped, finally letting go of the handle as we turned onto his street. "We're almost there, right?"

"Yeah." I didn't bother to ask how he knew it. Super-Iggy, right?

Ha ha. I amuse myself.

Stephanie was outside, clipping the hedges, with a red bandana tied over her sweaty face. "Hi, James," she said as we pulled up and both got out. I would say hi to her, then split. "Ah, hello, Max!"

"Hi," I responded, smiling at her. She passed my test of Niceness, but of course the second she gave up on Iggy she would be toast on my scale. So I was hoping she wouldn't, so I wouldn't have to go and graffiti her house, like I did with that one family before them. Iggy thought it was hilarious. My mother and most of the police force did not.

"I heard you got into that talent competition!" she said, smiling back. Her light, soft brown hair was tied in a ponytail at the base of her neck.

"Uh huh," I said, grinning in spite of myself. "Heading out to the interview today."

"Ooh, congratulations!" She actually sounded like she meant it. "Well, good luck! I have to run out to the store and get something for dinner—James, you'll be fine here, right?"

"Sure," he said, turning to me and holding out his arms. I hugged him, since it was the last time I'd see him or anyone in the dance troupe until I got back from the interview. "You'll do amazing," he whispered to me before letting me go and waving, heading up the steps of the house with accuracy. He'd been living there so long, he knew the house as well as he knew the dance studio. "See you later, weirdo!" he called before shutting the door, and Stephanie laughed a little.

"That's Iggy for you," I said, smiling, and she nodded affectionately in that way that mothers do. "So, um...how's he...you know, doing? At your house?"

"Oh, he's fantastic," she said cheerily. "No complaints." She picked up the hedge clippers again. "Well, good luck at your interview again, and we all hope you'll get in!"

"I hope so too," I said, before bidding her goodbye and climbing back into the Mini-car. I had half an hour. Upwards of five minutes to drive back, make sure everything's packed, make sure Mom's there...

I hit my head against the steering wheel once before forcing myself to cut the flow of adrenaline and drive home. Thank God, my mom had remembered, and was home and packed up. I silently thanked the gods of luck and put our stuff in the car. Ella, of course, brought about eight days' worth of clothes, even though we were going to be gone for only two, so that took up most of the space in the backseat of Mom's truck, and then of course she complained when we got to the airstrip that we weren't going on a big plane, but a little fifteen-passenger thing that Mom's friend piloted.

My heart lurched a little as we took off toward Philadelphia, and I'm positive it wasn't from the vertigo.


	4. Chapter 4

**Honestly, do you think two girls even as awesome as us own? **

**Blacks: Ooo we're in Philadelphia! Yay! **

**Fex: Yesyesyes, at your request. *notices that sort of rhymed and squees in delight* God, I hate disclaimers. Isn't it OBVIOUS it's not our work? It's FANFICTION. Who even thought up the disclaimer rule, anyway? Okay. Sorry. There was my rant of the day.**

**Blacks: She's high.**

**Fex: Again.**

**Blacks: Yes. Again.**

**Fex: Well, after a marathon Skype session, we've finally got this written. Enjoy. **

**

* * *

**

As amazing as I am, I've never been out of the general Georgia area. Living in Savannah is great, obviously, but with a single parent and a sister and all that jazz, we don't really travel much. I've been with my eighth grade class to Washington DC, but that's about the limit of my world exploits.

So when I stepped off the little plane piloted by my mom's friend and then left the airstrip that smelled like fuel for the Philadelphia airport, I was basically in awe.

At least I was quieter about it than Ella.

"Oh my gosh, Max, look! Look, look, the planes are huge! Ooooh, look at the big windows, you can see the planes taking off! Oh my God, this is so cool!"

"Ella," my mom said mildly, while fixing her carryon bag.

"You sound like Nudge," I told her, pulling back my hair and then putting it back down. The half-glass wall made the hall we were walking down warm and bright. People were bustling everywhere, and the thin carpet smelled like sun and travel.

"I do not," she said. "Ooh, Max, your hair is all shiny and stuff. It has red in it. Has it always had red in it? And blonde? Jeez, it's so pretty."

I rolled my eyes and kept walking, following Mom to the baggage claim, where we would collect our various bags and get out to the rental car taxis. We'd only be there for two days, three nights, but we had to get around somehow, right? I put my iPod in again as we went down an escalator to the ground floor of the airport. Announcements over the intercom played like background music, at least until I pressed PLAY on the small music player in my hand. A song from our dance set spilled into my ears, and I could feel my hands twitch, marking the steps ever so slightly as we stepped off the moving staircase and out into a huge, open room of conveyer belts where our luggage would come out.

They all had signs over them, telling us where to go, and one was "PRIVATE FLIGHTS," which we went to stand by. Security wouldn't let us just take our bags from the plane, no, we had to wait here for someone to unload them and chuck them out on a moving belt for us to take. And they always preach about time-saving at the security checks.

It took absolutely _forever _for the little buzzer on the top of the island separating the two strips of belt to go off, and when it did I jumped, taking out an earphone and getting into a running stance, thinking we were about to be bombed or something. Ella laughed at me. Mom smiled. I glared at both of them and replaced the earphone as bags started pouring out. They did all the private flights at once, every two hours or so, so I guess it was lucky we only had to wait about a third of that time.

Ella found her bag first, but she couldn't even lift it off the belt, and so I ended up having to run after it, and heaved it off the moving track right before it went back in the little doors on the other end. Jeez, how many sets of clothes did Ella need for two days' worth of travel? I had three changes of clothes. Period. One of which I would be wearing to the interview. Which was tomorrow. I started hyperventilating, just a little, as I dragged the Monumental Suitcase of Ella back to its rightful owner. Mom grabbed her simple black bag next, and I found mine last.

I dragged the thick strap onto my shoulder, quickly glancing behind me to check that Mom and Ella were trailing after me as I strode purposefully in the direction of the large glass doors at the end of the massive room. I walked past the colorful signs over a series of doors on the side opposite the oval belts of death, reading something to do with connections and declaring something or the other.

I ignored them, carrying on to the doors at the end. They were already mostly opened, allowing more light to stream through from the other side. This airport was so bright; it was like...sparkly. I'm no Twilight fan, but who doesn't like a little glitter every once and a while? Unless you're Ella, then you're in love with it. I have to keep telling her that she's going to end up looking like Ke$ha if she uses much more of the stuff.

More and more people started heading to the doors, and I felt Mom and Ella grab onto my bag so we didn't get split up as the crowd thickened. Through the doors, I noticed a small barrier, seemingly blocking off a bunch of people. I wondered who they were, when I heard a few screams and saw people being seemingly reunited; running around the barrier to hug each other. Clearly, this was where people met their family/friends/whoever the hell wanted to meet them, hopefully not abductors or similar unpleasant people.

A flash made me look to my left, and I realized that it was nothing more than a trick of the light, a sunbeam flashing off a guy's black hair. I took in his olive skin, a black duffel bag almost like mine slung across broad shoulders, messy yet somehow looking natural hair, and dark eyes. I mean, like, _really _dark eyes. Black. Or really, really dark brown.

He saw me looking at him, damn you, stranger, and our eyes met for a split second. He gave a tiny half-smile that I could just barely see, not showing teeth. Then I felt a tug on my sleeve, and I had to turn away from the guy, who looked about my age? A little older? Ella pulled on a strand of my hair and I turned to her in annoyance. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Oh shut up, Ells. Just because you'll try to go out with someone with anything faintly resembling the male anatomy." She scowled at me before glancing at him again. I looked back at him too; he was turning around now, heading towards the elevators, or something in that direction. I caught a quick glance of his profile, and I actually felt my heart jump a little bit.

Yes, I know, it _is _me. So shut up and get over it. He was _hot_. I'm allowed to think that. Right? I saw a glimpse of him before he was lost in the crowds again, seemingly swallowed by the ocean of boring, out-of-fashion suits. His all-black attire stood out for only a second before the briefcased robots melded back over him.

All I could see was the tiny news stand in the corner, selling Hershey's chocolate. I successfully navigated my way through the crowds of people, some running to others, and some calmly walking to the exit elevators, calling back to my mom to wait for me. I purchased my daily dose of sugar and went back to my small entourage, who were waiting for me next to the elevators.

I saw my Mom roll her eyes at the products in my hands and Ella cringe at the _millions and millions of calories! _I ignored them both, took one glance at the massive queues, and shook my head.

"There is no way I am waiting here for half an hour to be crammed in a tiny space with eight million other people when there are escalators right there." I pointed to them with a chocolate filled hand. I mean, seriously, I thought, how difficult can it be to take two duffel bags and suitcase down a few sets of escalators?

Even if the suitcase weighs more than a treadmill.

I found out exactly how difficult five minutes later. Bruised and irritated, I gave Ella the death glare as we walked out into the parking lot. Honestly, how on earth did she manage to drop her suitcase? On me! I ignored her hurried apologies as I scanned the shadowed area for a cab. Spotting a bank of them off to the side, I pointed them out to my Mom.

"Okay then. Max, you go fetch us a taxi while I try and find the name if our hotel. I can't for the life of me remember the name of it, and I don't want to keep the driver waiting while I try to remember. I know it's in here somewhere..." HHHHer murmurings grew softer as she upturned her bag. A pack of gum fell out and landed on the sidewalk, which I quickly snatched up before heading to find a taxi.

I waved one over to where my Mom and Ella were standing, Mom unfolding a piece of paper, Ella trying to lift her suitcase enough to get it ready to put in the taxi's trunk. He opened the door and popped the trunk, and grunted audibly as he helped Ella with her suitcase. Jeez. Causing trouble for civilians we don't even know. Thanks, Ells.

"I found it, thank goodness." My mom held up a piece of paper in her scribbly doctor handwriting, detailing the name, address, and number of the hotel. "We've got to go pick up the rental car, first though. So, the Avis lot?" She said this last bit to the guy, who had already started the meter. The little red numbers started going up before he even got his seatbelt on. I decided right then and there I hated taxi services. Gyps. All of them.

"I don't want to sit in the middle," Ella complained. She was squished between Mom and me, her skirt practically riding up to her hips. She pulled it down nervously.

"Bubkes," I told her, then settled into my seat and looked out the tinted windows. Not like I could see very well, since taxi windows might as well be in an FBI car, but it was something to do while Ella kept complaining and the taxi driver kept coughing in a very chain-smoker-esque way. The smell of old tobacco and fast food grease made me curl my lips, and I breathed through my mouth in order to not inhale it.

Alright, so I admit who I was looking for as we drove out of the airport complex. A little tiny corner of my brain was wondering who the dark-haired guy was. His body type was like a dancer's, thin but muscular, like Dylan or Iggy. Oh, God. I was almost glad they weren't with me, because if they knew some of the thoughts I was having, they would be all over me, asking me what I thought of him. Or, in Iggy's case, knowing him like I do, when I was gonna lose my v-card to him. I indulged in a brief fantasy of throttling Iggy with my bare hands after he said that, and then turned away from the window. There was a rip on the back of the driver's seat that looked like a unicorn. I named it Pablo and traced its horn with one finger.

The best thing I can say about the ride is that it was short, and then we were at the rental car place, where we could get a car that didn't suck and didn't have Pablos on the back of the seat.

The chain-smoking driver hauled Ella's suitcase out of the back, leered at my mother until she gave him the absurd amount of money she apparently owed him for driving ten miles to a glorified parking lot, then drove off in a whirl of exhaust smoke.

The men inside the rental car place were much nicer than the taxi guy, getting us out of there pretty quickly. Mom listed me on the insurance, paying a little extra for me to be able to drive the car we were renting. Ella asked if she could be on the roll too. Was refused, as she barely had her permit.

Our car was a little purple Miata, which I immediately fell in love with. Mom insisted she drive to the hotel, though, since we were in a new city with roads we didn't know. The car came equipped with GPS, I told her. She still insisted on driving, so I called shotgun, leaving Ella leaning between the seats and looking out the big window at Philadelphia.

We drove straight into the city, because our hotel was on the north side, where the buildings started to thin out and cars weren't as plentiful. Ella and I were gazing at all the skyscrapers and cool things on the sidewalks. I noticed a group of dancers on the edge of a wide alleyway, performing for passersby, and in the five seconds I saw them I determined that we were better. They didn't even have matching Converse. Noobs.

Okay, the hotel wasn't stellar. Like I've said, we're not exactly the richest people in Georgia, or anywhere else, for that matter. My mom gets paid okay, but of course she's a single mom and there's two of us. So. But our room was pretty nice. I immediately claimed a bed, leaving Ella to sleep on the pull-out couch and not pleased about it. I just stuck my tongue out at her and started unpacking.

By the time we had checked out the digs, it was way past dinnertime and night was falling. I was starving, having had nothing since my chocolate fix at the airport. Some quick laptop-ing determined that there was a Hard Rock Café on Market Street, pretty close to where we were, and I was dying to go, so we got out of there and drove to the corner where it was.

Parking took longer than the wait to get a seat. I looked around in awe of all the memorabilia and stuff from famous rock artists, the huge, not-exactly-orthodox stained glass windows, the people crowding the bar area. It was happy and lively, and though Ella said that it was too noisy, I could tell she loved it just as much as I did.

I ordered this chicken sauce thing. I had no idea what it actually was, but it was delicious anyway. Mom has something covered in melted cheese with little paper flags stuck in it, and Ella, of course, had a salad. Seriously, I see no point in salad. Would you go out and eat the leaves off a tree? No. So why eat it if it's just drizzled in some disgusting sauce?

I just rolled my eyes at her as she ordered and ate her glorified rabbit food, while I tucked in to my meal. No doubt laden with calories and carbs and whatever the heck else Ella has a phobia of.

"So, Max, are you looking forward to your interview?" I heard my mom say from opposite me, munching slowly on whatever she ordered, all the while twirling her fork in her hand absentmindedly.

"Yeah, I am," I said truthfully, but just then I felt the first fluttering of a teeny bit of nerves. Yeah, right. Me, the great Maximum? Nerves?

...yeah. Nerves.

* * *

My interview was so. Damn. Early. Eight AM. I thought I was going to have trouble getting up, but as it turned out, I woke up at three-thirty. In the morning. And couldn't go back to sleep.

I lay in bed till five, and then I just couldn't take it anymore, and swung my legs over the side. I changed quietly into my outfit that I would be wearing for the interview and laced up a pair of black Converse with studs. I had only brought my two favorite pairs, and those went with the outfit.

Mom had given me permission to use the car for today, saying that she and Ella would walk wherever they wanted to go, and I wrote her a note. _Leaving early—can't sleep. Be back later. Love you, Max. _Ella woke up and mumbled sleepily.

"Go back to sleep," I told her, then walked out, taking the car keys and the laptop and feeling the leather-denim-thing of the pants rub against my legs, not unpleasantly. The Miata was parked in the lot, and I relished the sound of the engine turning over. _On the first try. _As opposed to having to swear at the car I owned to make it start.

I didn't really know where I was going, exactly, or what I was going to do for a little less than three hours until my interview. I found my way, using the handy GPS, to the ITAC HQ building, parked, then walked until I found a combination Cinnabon/Starbucks about two blocks away. The smell in itself was enough to entice me in, and I bought a cinnamon bun and coffee, black with a whole lot of sugar. There were a few comfortable couches, so I sat down on one and opened my laptop, balancing it on my knees and trying not to get crumbs on the keyboard.

Opening up Skype, I saw that Iggy was online. At five-thirty in the morning?

_MaxMartinez: 'sup, weirdo? _

Iggy's computer had to be something out of a sci-fi movie. Just sending him that message, the computer would get it, and then announce "SKYPE MESSAGE FROM MAXIMUM MARTINEZ: 'SUP, WEIRDO?" When he moused over the icon for Skype, it would say "SKYPE." When he typed a letter and pressed a weird combination of keys, it would read it back to him so he could make sure that he hadn't made any errors. Technology is amazing. And a little bit scary.

_TheAmazingIggy: hey, bitch. _

_MaxMartinez: not nice. notice you changed your screen name again? _

_TheAmazingIggy: yep. had to dictate my amazingness to the world._

_MaxMartinez: oh, come on. your only contacts on skype are me, dylan, and that girl you met at the grocery store who you haven't talked to in eight months._

_TheAmazingIggy: ..._

_MaxMartinex: pwned._

_TheAmazingIggy: anyway. why are you up so early? the interview of your life isn't till eight. right? _

_MaxMartinez: yeah...couldn't sleep, though. got a coffee and cinnamon heart attack and sitting in starbucks waiting. _

_TheAmazingIggy: sweet. _

_MaxMartinez: uh huh. what are YOU doing up so early? _

_TheAmazingIggy: sleeping with brigid. _

_MaxMartinez: ...i feel dumb for saying this, but please, please, please tell me that you are kidding._

_TheAmazingIggy: no way. _

_MaxMartinez: i am now physically ill._

_TheAmazingIggy: okay. fine. fine. don't want you to throw up your cinnamony goodness all over the interviewer. she's not coming till tonight._

_MaxMartinez: ...we shall discuss the ethics of this situation in detail after i can think straight. _

_TheAmazingIggy: ethics? max? there's a disconnect here..._

_MaxMartinez: ...shut up._

I sat on the couch and Skyped Iggy until he said that Stephanie was making breakfast, and he wanted to go eat something. I gave him one last warning about Brigid and closed down the laptop. By that time, it was seven-thirty, and it would take me fifteen minutes to walk back and put the case in the car. Perfect timing. I looked around at everything and window-shopped just the tiniest bit as I headed back to my car.

I stood in the shadowed parking lot and struggled to extract the keys from my way too tight pants, cursing Ella into oblivion for making me wear them. Yes, I had to hand it to her, they looked good, but they were the definition of unpractical when it came to situations like this.

After a few minutes of failing miserably, I opted for trying to press the button from the outside of my pants instead, watching as a series of clicks and lights went off with each one I pressed. I was mildly concerned about what I was doing to the cute little car, but I didn't really care as I checked my watch, seeing it was 7:50am.

I finally clicked the right button and almost threw my laptop into the trunk, slamming down the door again and hoping it had auto-lock as I speed-walked out of the parking lot and into the overly shiny building beside it.

I stood outside the door momentarily, craning my neck upward to try and see the top of the colossal building. I almost fell over trying to; my balance never was very good, despite my seeming skill when dancing. I was suddenly struck by the enormity of my situation; I was _here_, I was a few steps away from my dream. All I had to do was walk through these doors, and there was no turning back.

I would get through, or I would fail.

I shook my head; there was no point in thinking so negatively. I pushed open the glass door in front of me, putting on a neutral expression as I spotted the reception desk and headed towards it. I noticed how the disheveled looking woman sitting there looked half asleep; her glasses askew as she leaned her head against her hand.

I put my hands on the flat, cold surface as I leaned towards her slightly. "Ehm, Maximum Ride Martinez? I'm here for an interview. Eight o'clock..." My voice trailed off patheticallyy as she gave me a sleepy-eyed death glare. Clearly, she was under the impression that eight AM was too early to be awake too. Oh, my God. I was making her provide effort. Shoot me now.

I watched as she tapped out a few letters on her keyboard, with such a bored look on her face it could have only been forced. "You're on the twefth floor. Room seven, on the right, with Miss Tomlinson." She spoke with a nasally voice. I gave a sort of half-wave, accompanied with a sort of half-smile, both of which she ignored, opting instead to resume staring off into the distance, her head in her hand again.

I rolled my eyes at her attitude – shut up. I know I have attitude, but hers was worse – and walked over to the line of elevators a few feet to the left. I pressed the button to bring one to this level, and looked around the room as I waited. Everything was white and bright; brightness seemed to be a running theme in Philadelphia. One of the walls was entirely glass, with a collection of green, leafy potted plants lined up in front of it. I took a second to look out at the view, which was pretty substandard at this point. Parking lot. Tree. Dog walkers. Drug deal (or, at least, that's what it looked like).

I realized as I stepped into the elevator that the ITAC was all about the appearances. I mean, the thing had marble floors. And sconces of golden light that probably cost more than my laptop for each one. Not that I was complaining—this place was the key to my dreams, after all. At risk of sounding melodramatic.

The fifteenth floor was virtually identical to the first, with a woman sitting at a desk tapping on a computer and a hallway full of doors. A glass wall assaulted me the second I stepped out of the bigger-than-normal elevator, and the view was...well, I guess incredible. Smoggy. But incredible.

The woman at this desk could not have been more different from the practically comatose one at the first floor. I hadn't even intended to ask her for help, really. It would be relatively easy to find "room seven, on the right."

"Hi!" the woman bubbled as soon as I rounded the corner. I took a look at her, saw neatly curled hair, a young, angular face, and smooth blue eyes. And a smile.

"Hi," I said back.

"Do you need help finding anything?"

"Um, I'm supposed to go to room seven. Miss...Tomlinson?"

"Ooh, interviewing for ITAC, huh? Singer? Musician?"

"Dancer."

Smile. She put her hands up on the raised edge of the desk, and I could see her nails were long and glossed with purple polish. "That's awesome. You look like a dancer."

"Thanks."

"Well, Miss Tomlinson's the third door down, straight down that hallway. There's a sign on the door. Good luck!" Another smile. I gave a weak one back, because all of a sudden the cinnamon bread and frosting wasn't feeling too fantastic in Max's stomach. I remembered Iggy's advice to not throw up on the interviewer and smiled to myself. That boy. How could he manage to make me feel better from across states, without even hearing his voice?

Stupid best friend.

The sign on the door was lettered in gold, stating that the room belonged to _Althea Tomlinson. _I put my hand up next to the door, then took it away, then put it back up, then let it drop down. I made to put it up to actually knock on the door when it opened inward. I had a miniscule moment of thankfulness that the door did not open outwards, thus hitting me in the face, then I realized that I had bigger things to worry about now.

Althea Tomlinson was a petite woman, shorter than me, anyway. At this point, Iggy would probably make a joke about how difficult that was to accomplish, and I would slap him. She was slim, wearing a suit that fit her well, her copper hair with hints of red flowing down to the middle of her back. She smiled when she saw me, and stepped back to let me in.

"Hi, Maximum?" she said, not even blinking an eye at the oddity of my first name. "I was just coming out to ask Janice if you'd come up the elevators yet."

"Uh, yeah, I just got here."

"Good! Saves me a trip, huh?" A small laugh. I stepped inside the small office. A window looked out onto a city square and lots of buildings. An LED light circus was already starting at eight-oh-five AM. The office itself was nothing special: a desk, cluttered with things. No pictures of a husband or boyfriend, or kids, though there was one of a dog. Two comfortable-looking chairs in front of it. A coffee machine.

"Would you like some coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate?" I loved hot chocolate usually, but my stomach didn't feel up to it at that exact moment.

"Oh, no thanks. I had coffee this morning."

"That's fine!" Smile. "Here, have a seat." I did, and she got a cup of coffee in a yellow mug from the machine and sat down across from me, behind the desk. "My life's blood," she said, taking a sip. I smiled. "So, Maximum."

"You can call me Max."

"I like that—I love your name, though. Maximum. _Maximum. _Sounds like you should be in a movie. You're a dancer, though, right?"

"Uh huh."

"Ah, a pity. Anyway. You have your information packet, correct? You're lucky—you're the first one I'm seeing today, so my brain isn't fried from reading all this stuff yet." I nodded and handed her the folder of papers that I had carried up with me. It had everything the ITAC had asked for—my birth certificate, report cards, letters of recommendation, written by Dylan and teachers that didn't hate me. Lucky Dyl, he's an adult. I still get asked if I want crayons with my kids menu. Okay, so I might be a little short.

Miss Tomlinson flicked through the folder and then looked back up at me. "I'm still kind of dead, and I'm sure someone explained it, but I can't seem to remember—how did you come to get here, again? Which audition did you go to?"

"I...I didn't."

"Ah..." she said, looking interested. "So what happened?"

"I'm in a dance troupe. There's twelve of us. We usually do stuff on the street—performing in parks and stuff. Mostly just for fun. But we did a performance at my school on the last day, and the head of the dance troupe—Dylan, he wrote a letter that's in there—asked...Jeb Batchelder, I think his name was, to come and watch me. He knows that I've kind of always wanted to do this. The competition, I mean."

"Kind of?"

"Okay, really a lot and for practically forever," I confessed, and she grinned. Good answer, Max. "He came up to me afterwards."

"Yeah, I know Jeb. He's a pretty uptight guy. He told you that you were good?"

"He told me I was worth the trip."

"Wow," she whistled. "You must be good, then, especially for him to put you through without a formal audition."

"Um...I hope so. I'm kind of screwed otherwise."

She laughed, and I felt my tense muscles loosen just a little. Miss Tomlinson was cool. I had been expecting a nightmare. "You have good grades in school, six As for the year and two Bs..."

"I hate math."

"So do I," she smiled, continuing to flick. "And here's the letter from...Dylan, you said his name was? And a few others from your teachers...awesome. These all look very good." She put the folder aside. "Can I just ask you to tell me a few things about yourself?"

"Um, my name's Maximum Ride Martinez. My mom is Valencia Martinez. My sister is Ella. I live in Savannah, Georgia."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Ah, good, good." She wrote it down with a pen. "What about your friends? What kind of people do you like to hang around with?"

"Mostly my dance troupe," I told her, and she nodded. "We practice so much they're like my brothers and sisters. Iggy Griffiths is my best friend—well, his real name is James, but he doesn't like it. He's blind. But he can still dance like crazy."

"Wow, that's amazing."

I nodded, getting on a roll. "And there's Dylan, of course. The girls, Lesley and Ana. We've known each other since we were all twelve and Dylan was fourteen."

"Long time," she commented, flipping through the folder again and frowning slightly.

"You've been arrested for vandalism?"

Oh, crap. I had been hoping that wouldn't come up.

"Yeah, um...Iggy, well, he's a foster kid. He's been in the system since he was seven. His parents gave him up and split out. He has this...this list. Scratched on the bottom of his shoe. Of all the families that took him in, and then kicked him to the curb. There's...a lot. Too many. When we were fifteen, we thought this one family was going to adopt him. He got...really excited. Happy. Happier than I'd ever seen him." I felt like I had to tell her the story, make her understand why I had done it. "Then, a month later—bam. He was back in the system, looking for another home. He was devastated. I got angry."

"What did you do?"

My voice dropped an octave, but I knew looking away from her wouldn't be a good thing to do. "I went to their house, and I spray-painted LYING JERKS on their house and car. The police picked me up an hour later. They let me go, though."

She just looked at me. Dammit. God, why had I been so damn _stupid_ at fifteen? Though I hadn't known it at the time, I had happily ruined my life with four cans of neon spray paint, available at your local retail. Great, Max.

Then Miss Tomlinson smiled.

I had a moment of disconnect before she spoke. "I think you are an admirable young woman, Maximum."

"Uh?" Wow. Eloquent. I made a mental note to bang my head against the elevator wall for that one.

"Most teenagers, when they do something like that, they do it to hurt society, to make a point. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do, but I can tell that you're a selfless girl. You did it for your friend when he was in pain."

Selfless? Me? ...well, I guess. Most of the time, anyway.

"Th-thanks."

"That's that, then. No other police charges?"

"No," I said vehemently, hardly daring to believe that she hadn't chewed me out and I seemed to have not lost my chance at my dream.

"I get that most people probably won't answer this truthfully, but, you're not on any drugs, right? No alcohol?"

"Not unless sugar and Kool-Aid count as drugs and booze." A laugh. I was good at this, man!

"I'm not going to count those," she said, still laughing and taking a sip of her still-steaming coffee. "And how long have you been dancing?"

"Um, five years now."

"How intensively?"

"Anywhere from three to six days a week. Depends. We practice whenever most of us have time."

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

I was taken aback. "Um, no. Is...is that really necessary?"

"Oh, no, it's not necessary at all." She smiled and rolled her eyes like I'd caught her at something. "Just my own curiosity—sorry if that was uncomfortable."

"No, it's fine—like I tell Iggy, he's ruined the entire male gender for me." Miss Tomlinson snorted in amusement.

"Well," she said, standing up. Oh, crap. It was over. Was it okay? I mean, it _felt _okay. But...was it? Oh, holy hell, oh God. Oh God. Oh God. I felt like I was going to be sick, and again remembered Iggy's sage advice. I had no idea what—

"Congratulations, Miss Maximum Ride Martinez," Miss Tomlinson said, holding out a hand. "I'd like to formerly invite you to the International Talent Agency Competition in London, England, three weeks from today." I took her hand, but I was in a daze. I didn't get it.

What was going on...?

Oh, wait. I'd just gotten my chance.

That was what was going on.

HOLYCRAP.

"Oh my God, thank you!" I heard myself say. _Don't...sound...stupid...you're not gone yet... _

"It's my pleasure," she said. "Here's all the travel information you need—I expect to see you in London in twenty-two days' time. Sound good?"

"Sounds...amazing..." I said breathlessly.

"Glad to hear it. And, Max?" I turned from where I was heading toward the door to try _not _to run down the hall shrieking like a madwoman. "Tell Iggy he picked a good best friend." I smiled at her again and walked quickly down the tan-carpeted corridor, back to where the purple-nailed Janice sat at her desk, looking at me interestedly. I held up the pale blue packet of papers, and she actually squealed and clapped her hands together. I grinned widely at her as she called a goodbye down the halls to the elevator.

When the doors closed and my Conversed feet were soundly on the moving white marble floor, no joke, I did a leap. A dance.

And I didn't bang my head against the wall.

* * *

It felt as if I was flying. Seriously, I felt weightless, and it didn't help as I easily maneuvered through the almost empty streets of Philadelphia in the adorable car, which, contrary to my hope, did not have auto-lock. All the drones at work, no? I had a massive, stupid grin plastered on my face, and no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't go away. I guess this is what having your dream come true does to you.

Geez. That was corny. What's wrong with me?

I quickly gazed out of my window in time to see another, yes, _shiny_, building to my left. I could faintly see through the glass panes, wincing slightly at the bright light reflecting off of it. I momentarily wished I'd brought my sunglasses – I know, stupid Max, the one thing I forgot to bring. But then I saw a glimpse of the _massive_ plasma TV. I felt my mouth fall open, out of my grin, but then I has sped past it, and it was forgotten.

But even as I drove I was imagining Dylan's reaction if he saw said TV. He had, like, a TV complex. All he had to do was see something faintly related to one in a window, and BAM, that's where we were standing for the next fifteen minutes as he drooled. He would throw a freaking _fit _when I told him about this baby. It had to be at least 25 feet tall. And that was just from a quick look. I giggled thinking about it; adding to my already incredible mood. There was nothing in the world that could bring me down right now.

I turned off into the parking lot of our hotel, noting somewhere in the back of my mind that for once, I managed to park almost perfectly on the first time. But I wasn't thinking about that as I slammed the small door shut and practically skipped to the hotel doors. I was seriously beyond exited to tell Mom and Ella my news, but first, I had to tell Iggy.

I whipped out my cell, hitting number one on my speed dial before I had a chance to think about it. I put it by my ear, listening to the simple ringing tone as I imagined what would be happening back in Savannah. Like the rest of Iggy's technology, his cell was programmed to speak at everything that that happened. At the moment, it would be repeatedly vibrating and saying _Incoming Call, Maximum Ride, _in a hideous, robotic voice that scared the shit out of me the first time I heard it. I leaned against the wall outside the lobby door and waited for the Igster to freaking _pick up his phone!_

There was a small click as he picked up, and heavy breathing on the other side.

"Hello?" He spoke in a dark creepy voice, taking on a British accent for some strange reason. I rolled my eyes, getting comfortable against the stones at my back as I spoke.

"Stop being such an idiot, Ig. You should be screaming down the phone, dying to hear the result of my all-important interview." I smiled as I spoke, imagining him smiling too. He was one of the few people who knew just how much this thing meant to me.

"Ah, yes, I forgot about that." His tone was stiff and formal, I had the sudden urge to slap him, despite the miles between us. "I take it from the lack of sobbing that you got through?" I could just hear the grin in his tone.

"YES!" I screamed into the phone, not caring that I was drawing some funny looks from other people in the parking lot. I resisted the urge to jump up and down like a five year old, settling for waving my free arm around spastically instead, probably looking far worse.

"YES!" I heard some sort of demonic squeal from the other end of the line, and held the phone away from my ear for a second as he no doubt jumped around his room screaming like a little girl. "I knew that you'd do it, Maxi! I'm so proud of you, you spastic idiot!" I grinned too. I knew that he was an idiot, but he really cared for me, and it made me so happy to hear him say such things. Well, apart from the last part.

"Hey, who are you calling an idiot, Igtard?" I asked, wishing I could just run and jump and do cartwheels and everything else I wanted to do. A businessman looked at me with tired eyes, and I almost laughed as I realized how strange our conversations sounded if you only heard one side of them.

"Takes one to know one, my dear." He said in a sing song voice, clearly as happy as I was.

"Whatever. Anyway, I gotta go break the news to my family ... no doubt they haven't been thinking of anything but me since I left at that ungodly hour this morning." I smirked as I said this; I was probably predicting what had happened.

"Okay then. Have fun. I'm going to the studio to tell the others! BAII!" He squealed again slightly at the end in such a very WTF-Iggy-manner, hanging up before I could say that _I _ might have wanted to tell them my great news. But, no. I despair.

I smiled, putting my cell back in one of my practically airtight pockets as I walked through the doors, finally, feeling on top of the world.

I know how out of character it was, but I actually smiled at every single person who passed me in the lobby, instead of either scowling or smirking as my opinions formed. But no, not today. I was super-happy-peppy-Max. Dude. Weird.

The wait for the elevator to reach the ground floor seemed endless, but that always happens when you want things to come quickly. I watched the big clock hung on the wall, each tick of the second hand seeming to take practically an eon. I noticed it had only been two hours since I had practically sprinted from my car, still unsure if I would get a yes or a no. It still hadn't sunk in.

The _ding_ as the doors in front of me opened brought me back into the present world, and off of cloud nine. Grinning yet again, I stepped inside and clicked on the '8' button, leaning on the metal railing of sorts that ran around the enclosed space. I wasn't even suffering from my slight claustrophobia, usually, all you have to do it shove me is a small space such as this and I'd be wound up tighter than a freaking spring. But, as I have said before, not today.

I could see my reflection in one of the cheap mirrors that lined the small walls. My hair was no longer tame; it was starting to leak out of its pony tail, making me looked a little rough around the edges. My smile seemed to stand out; my teeth were actually _visible_. I honestly couldn't remember the last time I had been this happy. My Converse-clad feet were tapping of their own accord, marking out little patterns on the worn carpet without my permission. My emotions were practically leaking out my eyes. I looked so much more natural like I usually did; working as hard as I could so I could help Dylan keep his head above the water, keep our troupe going, and searching for an opportunity to audition for ITAC. It was a good change.

The doors slid open, and I started slightly, too absorbed in my changed appearance. As I tried not to run down the corridor screaming "," I wondered if there was any way to disguise my happiness so I could give of at least a slight element of surprise. I struggled to compose myself, ignoring the adrenaline pumping through my veins and forcing my smile to relax. I probably looked like some mutant dwarf, with my grimacing expression as I tried to look neutral paired with my smaller-than-average height.

I counted the numbers as I passed each door, _215, 217, 219, 231, _up until 243. I took a deep breath while I extracted the room card from my pants, wondering once more why the hell Ella made me buy them. I tried to sadden my outward appearance again. It sounds cruel, but seriously, I wanted to surprise them and just _see _ the looks on their faces.

I pushed the door open following the click saying my card had been accepted, holding my breath, just in case Ella was going to jump at me.

Only to find them asleep.

I kid you not, on possibly the most important day of my life so far, instead of waking up to hear the results from the horse's mouth, so to speak, they were sprawled across their bed/sofa, out for the count. I almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of it. Usually, with anything half as important as this, like finding out how a street performance went, they would both wait up for me, eager to find out all the details. But, clearly, not today. I couldn't be angry with them; I personally found it too funny.

But, instead of standing and laughing at them as I felt I should, they began to stir, Ella groaning loudly as she did so, teetering on the end of her pull out couch. I watched as my mom turned over, to face me, her eyes blinking open blearily. She looked up at me for a few seconds, before closing them again, a content smile on her face.

I stood patiently for a few seconds, waiting for her to realize. She suddenly flew up unto a sitting position, her eyes opened wide with a shocked expression on her face as she stared at me, her brain obviously, finally thrown into Drive.

"Max!" she shrieked, causing Ella to sit upright also, looking around in shock at being woken so abruptly. I smirked, watching then flail around, wondering what to do. Mom sort of flopped around on the thin single bed, getting more and more tangled in her sheets as she tried to get up. Ella had long since thrown hers off, and was now standing up and staring at me as I casually leaned against the bathroom door frame.

"Did...did you get through?" Mom had succeeded in standing, and was now looking at me cautiously, obviously not wanting to remind me of my failure, if that was the case.

I was impressed with myself, managing to keep a straight face for this long, not giving away the real truth. I examined their expressions; they both looked worried and hopeful at the same time.

I gave up, not wanting to keep them in suspense any longer. I let the huge grin from before grace my features, as I did some sort of weird jump thing, screaming "_YES!"_ at a pitch I'm sure is meant only for dogs to hear and throwing my information packet in the air in jubilation. I heard them running towards me, both of them screaming something I couldn't exactly hear, before I felt their arms wrap around me, hugging me tightly, and we ended up a big, shrieking, happy mess. I'm not entirely sure what the people either side of our rooms must have thought, but we made such a racket, what with the jumping and the yelling and I think at some point Ella threw something at the wall.

Why? No clue. Shit happens when your beyond happy.

Eventually, however, we did calm down, and Mom and Ella forced me down onto my still unmade bed, grinning from ear to ear just as I was, and told me to spill all, spasmodically twitching and jumping with excitement and happiness as I was.

So I told them everything, with a grin so wide I swear it hurt, still not believing that everything I had ever dreamed of had come true.

* * *

**Okay! Two days, one minor spat and a virtual tour of the Hard Rock cafe and we're done! We also want to quickly say thank you to everyone who has reviewed! We appreciate each one. (AutumnMTC, thanks for the constructive criticism!).**

**Fex: Yeah, seriously, thanks. We do love reviews, but admittedly we comment on the sheer thoughtfulness and glowing length of some of them. *sarcastic eye roll* XD oh, yeah, and we're pretty sure we had the dumbest fight ever while writing this chapter. Anyway. It's freaking humongous. So, hope you're happy with it! **


	5. Chapter 5

**No own. (DAMN YOU, DISCLAIMERS.) **

**Blacks : GUTEN AFTERNOONEN.**

**Fex: Seriously? **

**Blacks : Yes! Yay for German! Even though that was dismal German ... it should be abend. Take note, children.**

**Fex: -_- Anyway...**

**Blacks : :D**

**

* * *

**

I sighed, pushing my earbuds further into my ears as I lay on the cool grass of my back yard. Good Charlotte was blasting in my ears, and I felt my feet twitching as they marked out a beat on the grass. I moved my arms to rest beneath my head and brought my legs up so my knees were in the air, allowing my feet to tap with more freedom, and I could feel the hot sun beating down on me through my leggings.

Three days till I went to England.

Yeah, so I was flipping out some.

I could just hear Ella and Nudge giggling about something over my music. I opened one eye slightly to see them in tiny shorts and crop tops, trying to get a tan while they held one of those girly fashion magazines between them. Once, I had nicked one of them, just to see what all the fuss was about. I felt sick just remembering it. Not that Nudge could actually get a tan, she was mocha colored already. I closed my eyes again, smiling slightly, still euphoric about the fantastic, amazing, wonderful events of Philadelphia.

As soon as me, Ella, and Mom had finished squealing and giggling and all other things totally unlike me, and Ella had for some reason called up every single one of her friends, none in which I had ever met, to tell them the news, we actually went shopping.

I know. Shopping. Yes, it was mildly torturous.

But there was some sort of underground mall that went on for half an age, and Ella had been babbling on about ever since she Googled it on her phone. So Mom asked the guy at the reception desk for directions and we set off walking, much to Ella's _delight_. It was a baking hot day, and she was wearing these flimsy little sandal things that slipped, meaning her precious feet actually touched the burning pavement. Despite the constant complaining, the thought of buying things kept her going. Being the awesome Mom that she is, my mom gave us some money each and told us to go crazy, buy whatever we liked, to celebrate my acceptance.

Usually, I would have declined, because I knew that we didn't have as much money as would be comfortable. But this was a completely different situation. And so the great Maximum Ride actually went shopping with her sister. I actually despised shopping with Ella; she had a nasty habit of going into every single freaking shop and looking at _everything_. I told her on no uncertain terms that if she dawdled and started trying on anything with a tag on it, I would repeatedly smack her around the face with my Converse.

Thanks to that helpful comment from me, Ella shopped much quicker, buying only a pair of shorts. Well, I say shorts, but they looked more like a scrap of denim to me. Without her trailing behind me at an agonizingly slow pace, I actually succeeded in buying something, in the form of an epic grey hoodie from Hot Topic. When we returned to Mom, she commented how it would be great to take to England, because it was always cold there so I would be in need of some warm clothing. I couldn't help the thrill it gave me to hear her words, despite the comment on how England would be cold; _I was actually in the ITAC!_

I was brought back to reality by phone buzzing on the ground next to me.

I picked it up and held it to my ear, still looking up at the cotton-candy clouds. "Hello?"

"I am not worthy!"

"Oh, shut up, Ig," I said. I didn't need to look at the caller ID to know that it was him. "What's happening?"

"Dylan wants a practice. Pick me up or I'll bomb your house."

"Why can't Stephanie take you?"

"She's out shopping. I will kill you, I swear. Get over here. Now."

"Eh, just drive yourself. Doubt your blindness will hinder you too much, right?"

"Definitely not. I'll go get the keys. See you on the road!"

"Oh, God, no!" I said quickly. Laughter from the other end. "I'll be there in ten. I hate you."

"Love you too, weirdo. See you in a few." Then the Igster hung up on me.

I reluctantly pulled myself off the grass and put my cell phone in the pocket of my hoodie, waving goodbye to Ella and Nudge and pulling my hair back as I walked through the house, yelled to Mom where I was going, pulled the keys off the counter, and headed out. I pulled out of the driveway, sort of missing the cute little Miata, and began to drive the familiar route to my best friend's house. Well, his current house. Hopefully his semi-permanent house.

He was waiting for me with his dance bag when I pulled up to the driveway, and he bounded down the steps and to my car. The first time I saw him do that, I was scared out of my mind and then convinced he had been faking his blindness all along. He told me that he knew the driveway too well by now, and that as long as I pulled up to approximately the same place every time, Iggy could find his way to my car. Freaking amazing. Not that I would admit it.

"HEY!" he said enthusiastically as he closed the door.

"Hey," I told him. "No bombing needed."

"Not this time, anyway."

I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn't see it, and backed out of Iggy's driveway, driving downtown toward the studio. "Why didn't Dyl call me for a practice, then?"

"Guess he just doesn't love you enough. He didn't want you to come."

"Oh, and he loves you more?"

"Definitely. So, you excited for your mega-epic British invasion?"

"More than you could possibly imagine," I sighed, finding a place to park at the usual gas station. We got out of the car and started walking, our Converse stepping in time with each other. We were late, and Dylan was going to kill us, but I didn't really care what he thought at this point.

I opened the door of the run-down building block and prepared for a Dylan explosion.

"SURPRISEEE!"

It was an explosion, to be sure.

I was wrapped in a ten-person hug, hearing laughing and giggling and congratulations. When everyone finally broke apart, a plastic cup of Diet Coke was shoved into my hand and I was finally able to see the transformation of the studio. There was confetti everywhere, and streamers hung on the walls. A table of snacks and soda stood where the boombox usually was, and a very poorly painted banner reading CONGRATULATIONS, CRAZY BITCH was hung on the wall. A CD player sat in the corner.

"Oh, my God, you guys did not," I said, sounding dumb, but Dylan emerged from the crowd and wrapped me in a hug.

"We definitely did," he said against my hair. I pulled back and took a swig of my drink, grinning at him.

Marco put a CD in the player, and my favorite, _favorite _song _ever _(that week) spilled out the speakers. Iggy took a bow when I made a noise of delight. "Your doing?" I asked him, and he nodded.

"Ooh, food," I said, trotting over to the table and helping myself to a doughnut.

I picked up the first one I could find, with some tasty looking white icing on it. I shoved about half of it into my mouth at once, using my hand to wipe away any stray icing from around my mouth, holding my cup of Coke in the crook of my elbow. I turned back to face my adoring fans, only to see a flash of bright light and hear loud laughter from each side of me, clearly at my sudden deer-in-the-headlights expression.

"Dude, this picture is epic...look at her face...this is SO going on Facebook tomorrow." I heard Rico murmuring to Kenny amidst the talking and music. My head snapped around to face them, and I saw Rico peering over Kenny's shoulder to look at the screen of his prized digital camera, grinning at whatever he saw there.

I put down what remained of my doughnut along with my slightly squashed cup and stalked over to them, wrenching the camera from Kenny's hands. I took one look at the picture; me with my mouth stuffed full of doughnut, half a icing moustache and a deer-in-headlights expression and deleted it before Rico could finish his choked 'No!'.

I handed Kenny back his camera, smiling sweetly. "There you are, Ken."

I swallowed my sniggers at the puppy-dog expressions gracing their features and turned back to reclaim my doughnut and drink, grinning all the while. I ignored their whimpers and walked towards the rest of the troupe, who were smiling also and waving for me to join them. As soon as I was within three feet of Lesley, she jumped over to me, bouncing on the balls of her feet in front of me.

"!" Some kind of strangled squeal found its way out of her mouth as she wrapped her arms around me. "Congratu-freaking-lations!"

"Thanks, Les," I said into her hair that always smelled like gel. She disentangled herself, accepted a can of Sprite from Jack, and headed off somewhere else.

There was lots of hugging, some minor bad dancing, some karaoke by people who should never open their mouth to sing (yes, I'm talking to you, Iggy). It went on for longer than I could possibly believe, and as dusk fell we were all sprawled in various places on the floor and on cheap folding chairs Dylan had carted in for the occasion.

"Dammit, Dyl, aren't you forgetting something?" Shawn nudged him pointedly, and Dylan's mouth fell open and his eyes went wide. He looked like a demented owl, and I took the cue to start laughing at him, but he didn't react. He just ran out of the studio.

"Umm...what just happened?" I asked, but the rest of the dance troupe had expressions like they knew exactly what Dylan's forgetting, and they won't tell me. I tried beating it out of Nathan, but for once it didn't work, so I was left to just wait for Dylan to come back.

He came running back in with a shopping bag, which I promptly tried to rip out of his hands. He held it above his head, laughing, and everyone gathered back on the chairs and floor in a horrible imitation of a circle.

Dylan opened up the nondescript brown paper bag. The first thing he took out was wrapped in shiny purple paper, and he handed it to me.

"Oh, God, really?" I said in exasperation. "You guys didn't have to get me anything. I didn't WANT you to."

"It's okay, we didn't break the bank," said Iggy. "Open it and see."

I made a face, but I was curiously, so I ripped the paper off.

About eighty instant one-serving packets of Kool-Aid spilled out onto the floor.

I instantly burst out laughing. "Oh my God, you guys...did you seriously get me a life-times supply of Kool-Aid?" I looked at each of their grinning faces.

"Well ... No." Iggy spoke up from his position on the floor next to me, leaning back on splayed hands with a kind of graceful ease. "Only enough for one packet a night while you're away dancing your butt off for that ITAC panel in England." He spoke the last part in a hideously terrible British accent, sparking laughs from the whole of the troupe.

I laughed too; Iggy couldn't imitate an accent if his entire life depended on it. Just trust me on this one. "So...they don't have Kool-Aid in England?" I questioned.

"No." This time it was Dylan who spoke, looking down at me from his rickety plastic chair. "We looked. And, well, we couldn't have a Kool-Aid toast without our star dancer part of it. No matter what country she's in."

I tried hard not to blush. I really couldn't take compliments. "Seriously.. I'm not the best." I saw Iggy begin to open his mouth to protest, but I slapped him before he could speak. "Shut it, 't want to hear it!" I smirked briefly as he brought a hand up to feel the cheek I had slapped, his mouth open in an 'O'. "But seriously guys ... thanks." I really was grateful; the fact they still wanted me to be included in our toasts was a big thing for little ole' me.

Okay, so I wasn't gushing with gratitude. But whatever.

"Err...Dyl?" Jack said, looking pointedly at him, his eyes flicking down to the paper bag by the chair he was sat on.

Dylan seemed to start slightly, before quickly reaching down into the bag once more. I narrowed my eyes slightly; they'd better not have gotten me another present. There was no need.

And yet.

Dylan pulled out another package, this one wrapped in a garish pink color paper. "Yeah...sorry about the color choice. It was Iggy."

"Hey! Was not!" I ignored Iggy's retort as I glared at Dylan.

"You didn't." He smirked.

"We did. Don't you dare complain. We still didn't break the bank, though I admit it was close this time, and it's not as if we're going to let you go across the Atlantic Ocean without giving you a little something to remember us by."

"I'm not going to forget-" I started to protest, but I was cut off my Dylan once more.

"I don't care. Just shut up and open the damn present, shorty." I gave him a quick glare at the use of my irritating nickname, and reluctantly accepted the gift from his outstretched hand.

I couldn't help the small smile that crept onto my face as I ripped off the shiny paper; I could never be one of those people who never ripped the paper, it took too long. I just ripped it to shreds in order to get to my gift.

Within a matter of seconds, I was surrounded with confetti-sized pieces of pink stuff, and a shiny, high-tech webcam in my hands.

"Wow...you really didn't have to guys." I looked up at all of them, to see them grinning madly at me.

"Exactly, we didn't have to," said Marco.

"But we did anyway," said Iggy.

"There are instructions that come with it," said Ana, pointing at the floor, where an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of typed paper lay, slightly torn and completely unread. I picked it up.

_**Alright, shorty! Yup, we spent a pretty penny to get you this damn thing, so you better appreciate it. There is a way to pay us back, however!**_

_**If you weren't planning on taking your laptop to England, do it. Or we'll track you down and force it into your suitcase before we get there. Remember Jack's lockpicking skills and Nathan's uncanny ability to get weapons into places where they're not supposed to be allowed? **_

_**Anyway. **_

_**Bring it. Every night at nine there-time (four here-time) you damn well better be on your laptop with the software that we made Ella install on your hard drive (don't kill us, we bribed her with a subscription to Cosmopolitan) and that super-fan-say webcam plugged in. If you can't make it, you must send us an email. Or we'll think that something terrible has happened and send the bobbies out after you. BE THERE. With your shot glass at the ready. And a Kool-Aid packet. **_

_**Or we will kill you.**_

_**Nahh, just kidding, we won't because if we kill you then you can't win. Which we want you to. And know you will.**_

_**Okay. Anyway! That's it! DO IT!**_

_**Love, **_

_**Your Brilliant Dance Troupe **_

I looked up, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. "God, you guys. I effing love you, you know that?"

"We do," said Iggy. "Especially me."

"ALL of you, pinhead. C'mere." I gathered everyone up in one gigantic hug, and we were all grinning like maniacs. "Seriously, thank you, so much. I promise I will use it."

"You better," said Lesley, and there's a general murmur of agreement. "Dyl got us all just as many packs of the damn stuff. If it was possible to get sick of Kool-Aid, I would do it over the next couple of weeks."

"I'll only be gone for a month," I said. "Four weeks. You'll live, right?"

"Possibly," says Rico, smoothing back his dark brown hair.

"It'll be a challenge," adds Kenny.

"But I think we can manage," finishes Dylan.

The party goes on for a ridiculous amount of time, and by the time we're all texting our parents telling them we're headed home, it's past eleven PM. My stomach is too full of sugar, but Iggy, being Iggy...

"We're going out for ice cream," the Igster says, tilting his chin up and giving me a half-smile.

"You're not serious," I said, closing the door to the dance studio with one hand, the other holding the purple bag of presents. "We just ate enough calories to probably sustain a family of five for a month."

But Iggy just said "Yep!" while popping his lips on the "p" and pulled out a twenty. "My treat. Well, Stephanie's actually, but I asked her for the money. Isn't there a Ben and Jerry's like eighty feet due north-west?"

"Um, across the street and down the block a ways?"

"Sure, whatever. We're going there."

Perplexed, I made sure Ig didn't die on the street and we stepped into the open-late Ben and Jerry's. Iggy had me read out the flavors, picked one, and got a single scoop. I got the same, and we sat down at a two-top table in the back.

"Okay, what's this all about, crazy?" I asked warily, hoping my ice cream wasn't poisoned or infused with acid or something. I mean, I didn't think I'd been away from it long enough...but there was that minute where I went to get the napkins, and Iggy did love a joke, especially when it was centered on me...

"The others would tease me into oblivion for the cliché," he said, eating a heaping spoonful of his dessert after his dessert at the party. I thought about just not eating mine, but for God's sake, I'm not Ella. So I dug in too.

"I don't get it," I said bluntly. He rolled his sightless eyes.

"You realize they all place bets on whether you're going to do it with me or Dylan first," he said, and my eyes widened (since, of course, I hadn't realized this at ALL), but all I said was "Ew." "I know, that's what I said, but I really don't want to encourage them. So...here." He took a little black box out of his pocket, kind of flat, like the ones that Ella gets from the mall that contain some new fancy Swarovski crap, or whatever it is. But the one that Iggy hands to me is plainer-looking.

"Iggy, if you're proposing to me, the answer's already no." He laughed and waved at me in the universal _Just open it _way. So I did. Curious me.

Inside the box, on a bed of black satin-y stuff, was a necklace on a simple silver chain, a tiny set of wings. They were delicate and feathered down to the little ridges on the ends, and I actually heard my breath suck in a little bit as I looked at them.

"You hate it?" Iggy asked. "Too sappy, right? Maximum Ride Martinez wearing jewelry, God forbid, I'll just take it back or someth—"

"Shut up!" I said, smiling like a fool. This was becoming a regular occurrence. "I love it, okay?"

"Wow. Really?"

"Yes, God, yes. It's beautiful." I put it on, and it fell just right around my neck. "Thanks, Ig."

"No problem," he muttered. "Good luck charm, or something."

"It's amazing. But why are we here?" I waved vaguely around the ice cream place.

An evil Iggy grin. "I figured if you were comatose from sugar, you wouldn't kill me when you opened it."

I laughed, and we threw away our half-finished cups, because, really. There's only so much one can have in a day.

I drove Iggy home and hugged him before I went back to my own house alone.

**Okay. Yes, this took a while ... you can all blame Blacks for that. (*hangs head in shame*) But we hope that you enjoyed this chapter anyway! And, once again, thankyou to those of you who review! We appreciate each and every one! **

**Fex: Eh, it was kinda my fault too. But. Oh well! Reviieeeewww please! We love them! They make our days! So don't you want to make two trans-Atlantic days? :D**


	6. Chapter 6

**Fex: Blacks wanted to start this chapter with "I HAVE ARRIVED, BIATCHEZZ." I vetoed that and started writing instead. :) **

**Blacks: but ... come on ... it's such a cool start to a chapter! ;D**

**Fex: LOL. No thanks...dude. We have so effing many reviews. Seventy-one on five chapters? /gives all reviewers virtual cookies. **

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You'd imagine a tearful goodbye as I went off to England, with someone confessing something life-changing and one of my best friends suddenly getting cured of cancer. You know, if they had cancer.

Yeah, no. It was pretty much a party.

Lots of hugging, some food, hair-tousling, and then I left for my flight to London, with only Iggy, Mom, and Ella accompanying me to the airport. Mom had wanted to go with me, but unfortunately couldn't afford it. The ITAC paid for my flights, but not anyone else's. Plus, the whole staying-in-England thing? Way too expensive. So I would be going alone.

Thank God I didn't have to go through the whole Unaccompanied Minor thing, because that's only for people under sixteen, so not yours truly. I got a normal ticket and walked with Mom, Iggy, and Ella as far as they would allow them in, which was only to the security gates.

"Promise you'll be good," said my mom with tears in her eyes. I sighed and hugged her for the millionth time.

"Yes, I promise, Mom."

"No drugs, no alcohol, no sex," said Iggy in a very mommish-voice. My mother actually laughed through her watery eyes and reached up to hug him too.

"You either, Ig," I told him, and wrapped my arms around his middle.

"Hey, I don't like being excluded!" said Ella, joining in the group hug, followed immediately by my mother. I could see over Iggy's shoulder that people were starting to stare, but I didn't care in the slightest. I could feel myself tearing up—no. No, actually, I wasn't, I take that back...okay. Fine. Maybe just a little bit.

"Vocab word, Ell?" I asked her, my voice slightly muffled by Iggy.

"Definitely," she said, then started crying. When we all disentangled, I gave her an individual hug.

"Be cool," I told her. She nodded and swiped at an eye, making her mascara run.

"Jeezum," I said. "Why are you all crying? I'm only gonna be gone four weeks."

"I guess I'm just afraid I'll never see you again," my mom said, her voice breaking a little. "Oh, God, that sounds lame. Forget I said it." Iggy snorted and I laughed, and then we all hugged one more time before I took my carry-on bag in one hand and stepped out of my shoes, putting everything on the metal detector conveyer belt and waving good-bye as I stepped through the arch.

I looked back after putting my shoes back on to see they were still waving. I smiled one more time, wishing Iggy could see it, and then turned away before I totally lost it. I fingered the necklace my crazy best friend had given me and felt a little better.

Okay, that's where the sentimental moments ended.

Airports=boring. If you have someone along with you, they're a tiny bit less so, because at least you have someone to talk to and bug when you can't find anything to occupy yourself with. Unfortunately, I did not. So I was basically bored out of my skull.

Mom had given me a little purse, and I opened it and saw money. _Rolls _of money. My eyes actually bugged out a little bit. Jeezum. I made a mental note to not use more than half of it, but took a twenty and bought a coffee and pastry from a stand. My flight took off in forty-five minutes. I was about ready to bang my head against the wall, sitting there staring at nothing like an idiot.

I absentmindedly chewed on my food as I found one of those high-tech, expensive white plastic chairs (ha, ha) to sit on off of a little cafe thing. My gate was nearby. I crossed my ankles together and relaxed; there was no point pacing around like I had a bee up my butt waiting for the flight to be announced.

The general noises of the busy airport were kind of comforting, I guess... could hear the odd announcement, and people walking past me, having conversations with fellow passengers, or talking on the phone to say they were all right. I felt a bit better, knowing that I wasn't the only one leaving my family for a while. Tearful goodbyes were passed down the phone from one girl, who looked about twenty.

She muttered something under her breath and closed her phone with a snap, before collapsing in a chair a few feet from me. I sipped my coffee as I watched her try to compose herself, hiding behind her curly brown hair so as to hide her tears. I felt a pang of sympathy for her; she must be taking it much harder than I was.

She sniffled, and must have felt my gaze one her, because she hurriedly wiped her eyes and looked up at me. She gave a sort of lopsided smile.

"Sorry about that. I'm not usually such of a wuss, it's just I'm not used to leaving my family for such a long time." She blushed and looked down at her hands, which were resting on the table, clasped tightly together.

I smiled. "Don't apologise. I feel exactly the same...this is actually the first time I've left my family for more than two days." I chuckled slightly.

She gave me another small smile, and suddenly stood up and moved to the seat next to me, throwing a power-blue backpack onto the ground. "Sorry ... d'you mind if I sit here? I just think I'll feel better if I'm not on my own for a while..." She suddenly looked sheepish, as if she hadn't realized what she was saying and now suddenly had caught herself.

"Nah, it's okay. I was getting lonely anyways." I grinned. I was glad I had someone to talk to; sitting alone was kinda boring.

"Thanks. I'm Katie." Katie looked less nervous now, certainly not as tearful as she was before.

"Max." I took another long slurp of my extremely caffeinated drink.

"Awesome name. Mine's so...generic. Where are you flying to?" She questioned, leaning down and unzipping her bag to pull out a packet of Poptarts.

"England. London, actually. I got into the ITAC ...don't know if you've heard of it..." I trailed off as I saw her rip the packet open with her unmanicured nails and start chewing.

She suddenly grinned at me, and I was instantly reminded of Iggy. I felt a slight pang of sadness at the thought of my best friend, but brushed over it. "The ITAC? Wow...that's a big deal, right? Good job!"

I smiled back. "Thanks. So...where are _you_ flying to?" I turned slightly on the hard plastic of my chair to face her better.

"Florida. It's where one of my old friend lives...she invited me over for the summer. I didn't really know what I was getting into." She gave a light chuckle and indicated to the tear tracks staining her pale cheeks.

"Awh," I said. "Well, best of luck!"

"Thanks," she said, smiling shyly with even teeth. "You too."

"_Flight sixteen twenty-nine, destination London, is ready for boarding. Again, flight sixteen twenty-nine, destination London, is ready for boarding. All first-class passengers may board. Thank you." _

"That's you, I expect," Katie said, nodding at nothing. I smiled ruefully and bobbed my head in agreement, picking up my bag and swinging it across my shoulder. "Well, good luck again!" I smiled at her before leaving. Meeting this stranger had made me feel a little better.

The monotony wasn't over, though—turned out I had to wait fifteen more minutes for my section to actually board. I was kind of between the middle and the back of the coach cabin, and I took my seat next to a businessman in a pinstripe suit who smiled at me, then went back to typing on his phone.

The safety video played, and I watched as they outlined what to do in a state of dire emergency, doom, apocalypse, mutation, whatever. A woman in a flight attendant's uniform explained in great detail how to operate a seatbelt, something that Ella, at two years old, had figured out when we flew to Colorado that one time, in five seconds.

We took off, and then I was able to open my laptop. The airline was awesome and had internet access (thank you, ITAC) so I was able to mess around on the interwebs.

Of course, then my laptop died, so I slept. It was a seven-hour flight, and I was out for the last four. A flight attendant had to wake me up to move my seat back to the right position. I checked my iPod clock. It had changed time zones automatically, and it was almost five PM in England. Suddenly, I was glad that I had slept, because otherwise I would be dead with jet-lag in a day.

Everyone was shunted off the flight like lemmings, la la la. The information packet I'd been given said that people would be waiting from the ITAC to take us to the complex where we'd be staying, and I looked around for them.

Well, duh. A group of people was standing by a man with a two-by-four sign saying ITAC in big black letters. I headed for them.

"Maximum Martinez?" a woman in a suit standing next to the man said in a British accent. Um, obviously? I made the mental note that I was in England now.

"Uh huh," I said, and she nodded, ticking off something on a clipboard.

"Is that everybody, then?" the man with the sign asked.

"I think so..." The woman swiped her finger down a piece of paper. "Yep, she's the last one. Welcome aboard, Maximum."

"Uh, just Max is fine."

"Alright, everyone," the woman called to the group at large. I melted in with them, standing next to a girl with a blonde, messy shag haircut. She smiled, and I smiled back, but I didn't have time to say hello before the woman was talking again.

"We're going down to the baggage claim—they've placed all of your things aside, but we're to go and collect it. So, follow us, please! Don't lag behind." And the two adults in charge started walking briskly.

"Hello," the girl who had smiled at me said.

"Hi."

"I'm Savannah," she said, her dramatically outlined green eyes looking me over. "And you're Max?"

"Yep."

"Ooh, I love that name."

"I like yours. I live in Savannah, Georgia. Weird, huh?"

She laughed, and it seemed I had made my first friend at the ITAC.

* * *

I collapsed at the top of the stairs, my suitcase lying next to me, as I struggled to catch my breath. Savannah followed suit, just managing to shove her own suitcase out of the way before sprawling face first on the carpeted floor. Of course, our room just had to be on the top floor. Floor seven. Seven flights of stairs, with no elevator, meaning we had to carry our majorly heavy cases up three hundred and twenty seven stairs. Yes, I counted. So sue me.

"Uuuugh." I let out a groan as I stared up at the smooth white ceiling above me.

"I thought I was strong." Savannah's voice was muffled slightly as she huffed out her words. "Clearly not."

I nodded, even though she wouldn't see it. I flung an arm out to the side to rest on my suitcase, struggling to find the handle.

We'd arrived at the ITAC dorm building only ten minutes before, and had barely two minutes to compose ourselves before room sheets were thrust into our hands and we were told to head to our rooms before dinner. I had found my name at the bottom of the sheet posted on the wall, along with the names of the two other girls sharing a room with me for the next month. I was pleased when I saw Savannah was one of them; at least it wouldn't be 100% awkward. Just 99%.

I didn't have a clue who this "Nichola" was, the other girl we were sharing with. I didn't see any girls looking lost in the quickly dispersing group around the room assignment sheet, so I shrugged and started heading up the stairs, with Savannah in tow.

I grabbed the handle of my case, and successfully hauled myself up into a sitting position, my breathing more regular.

"Maybe...maybe next time we shouldn't try to run up the stairs." I said. I heard Savannah laugh at that, even though it had been her idea. She had wanted to get there quicker to get to dinner quicker. I stood up and held out a hand to her. She had managed to flip over, but was still lying on the floor.

She grabbed it, and I quickly pulled her up, before taking my case once more and quickly walking down the hallway. I started counting the door numbers.

"What was our number?" I called back to Savannah, who was for some strange reason twirling at random moments as she headed towards me. Weird girl.

"Three one six." I nodded, pulling out the schmancy key card one of the officials had given me along with my room sheet, and slotted it into the door in front of me. It opened with a click, and I pushed it open hurriedly, eager to see what my living conditions for the next four weeks would look like.

I was presented with a set of bunk beds, and one the opposite side of the room was a single. They each had soft looking, pastel blue sheets and a fluffy blanket perched on the end, along with a stack of towels near the pillows. The room itself had white walls, white curtains, white carpet. I kind of got the feeling I was in a hospital, which creeped me out a little bit. But all was forgotten and I caught sight of the bunk beds once more.

"Sweet!" I exclaimed, throwing my suitcase onto the top bunk with a grin on my face. I was impressed at my strength, until it never actually reached the bed, and fell to the floor with a loud _bag_.

"Oops..." Savannah laughed. "Here, midget. I'll put it there for you." She grinned at me, and lifted the suitcase with ease before pushing it onto my bunk.

"Stupid tall person." I said, mock-glaring at her.

Savannah gave me an innocent, winning smile before giving up and shoving her suitcase on the bed underneath mine.

She began to unzip it and take out clothes and bags and the like. I jumped onto my mini-ladder in order to climb onto my bed. I moved the towels out of the way, before lying down on it, allowing my red converse clad feet to dangle off the side. Savannah kicked one out of the way.

"Just wanted to let you know," I said, "you kick the bottom of my bed during the night and I will murder you in a very painful way."

She snorted at that, and continued unpacking. I gave my own case a glance, before shrugging and leaving it where it was.

I could feel my eyes beginning to close (hey! Travelling over the Atlantic ocean is no easy feat!), when intercom speakers that I noticed about three seconds after the voices began crackled to life.

"All ITAC contestants, dinner is now ready. Please come down to the dining room at once!" it sounded like another of the officials, and I sighed before jumping down onto the carpet.

"Let's roll." I said to my roomie, already heading toward the door.

"Seven flights of stairs. _Fun._"

Despite the seven flights of stairs, we made it to the dining room in record time. I could feel my stomach growl loudly as the smell of food wafted over to me. I grabbed her arm and started heading to the counter where the food was being served.

There weren't that many people here. I had expected the ITAC to be packed, at least three hundred people. But I was surprised to see maybe seventy-five in total. I could hear a variety of accents; American, Indian, German, French, the lot. But no English accents. I almost laughed at the irony.

I picked up a tray and almost slammed it onto the metal counter thing, moving it straight away. I was starving, and I started using tongs to put a little of everything on my plate.

"You want to go find a table?" Savannah asked, nodding at my now almost overflowing plate.

"Yeah, I think I saw-" I was cut off by a shriek.

"OMFG. THEY HAVE CHICKEN NUGGETS."

The whole room seemed to turn to look at the girl with the English accent who was standing in front of one of those heated trays, this one piled high with the food in question; chicken nuggets.

She took a quick glance at the many people staring at her, shrugged once, and began piling her plate full of them. I kid you not, she had nothing else, except for what seemed like a lake of ketchup. I watched in wonder as she happily skipped to the drinks section, her short black hair fluttering out behind her.

I turned to look at Savannah. She gave me a grin, rolling her eyes at the girl. "She seems very... happy." I nodded, before heading towards the _other _drinks stand. I quickly grabbed a Diet Coke, while Savannah got water. We quickly put them on our trays before maneuvering between the tables to find an empty one.

Spying one in the far corner, I nodded my head towards it.

The nugget girl sat down the same time that we did. I hadn't even noticed her pop up behind us until she was already next to me and across from Savannah, but here she was with her plate full of chicken nuggets.

"Hey!" she said in her smooth accent, and Savannah and I both smiled. I took in her appearance quickly; short, volumous hair, dark brown eyes lined with a tonne of black eyeliner that didn't look out of place, and a baggy checkered shirt paired with leggings and black-on-black converse.

"Hi," I said, while Savannah nodded.

"God, these things are amazing," Nugget Girl continued, dragging one through ketchup. "Anyway. Who are you guys?"

"I'm Savannah," Savannah said, "and this is Max."

"Max? Weird name. But cool. I like it."

"Thanks," I said. "You?"

"Oh, I'm Nikki," she said, waving one hand and picking up a chicken nugget with the other. "Nichola, actually, but whatever. Nikki's fine."

"Hey, you're our roommate, aren't you?" Savannah said, making the connection about half a second before I did.

"Ooh, I guess so, huh?" the girl said. "Your stuff was up there when I put mine away. Guess I just missed you."

"Question," I said as she took a bite, "what's with the nugget fetish?"

"They're amazing," she said simply, eating another.

Dinner passed pretty quickly. Once it seemed like most people had finished eating, we were all shepherded into a huge auditorium.

"Hello!" shouted the same woman that had gotten us from the airport, going up onto the stage, which was _huge. _Easily big enough for everyone at the ITAC to fit on comfortably. "Welcome to the International Talent Agency Competition!" A few people cheered and whooped. "I hope you enjoyed the dinner, and I'm sure a lot of you jet-lagged foreigners don't want to move, but I'm going to have to ask you to. All musicians, please move to the right of the auditorium. All dancers, please move to the middle. All theatrics competitors, please go to the left. Go ahead!"

We all got up, and I was surprised when Savannah didn't stay with our little trio, but rather moved off to the right. "Music!" she called back over her shoulder, and went to sit with a bunch of girls wearing eyeliner, chatting with them absently as everyone else moved. I looked at Nikki.

"Dancer," she said, and I nodded. We walked together to the front middle of the auditorium, and sat about eight rows back. All that I could see were the backs of heads, mostly blonde and brown heads, but one raven black one standing out among the twenty of us or so. It belonged to a guy, but I couldn't see his face.

"These are your competitors for the next four weeks," the woman said in a powerful voice. "But as hard as it is to believe, these are also your partners."

A murmur of confusion.

"As you are all aware, there will be five rounds of this competition. By the fifth round, there will only be eighteen people still in these dorms, because all of you have round trips home for anytime between now and four weeks from now." Eep.

"But this does not mean that you should disregard others and only think about yourself. We feel that this is the wrong approach to a competition.

"Because of this, we have designed our five rounds to accommodate teamwork, as well as things outside the competitors' comfort zones."

Apprehensive much? Nikki and I looked at each other, and then back at the woman, who was still talking.

"The first round will be a group round. Each and every one of the competitors in your field must collaborate into a group performance. Drama will put on a performance involving all twenty-five of you. Music must compose a group piece. Dancers must choreograph an ensemble performance. No one should become a star, and no one should fade into the background. You will have three days."

The first round sounded challenging already.

"After this round, five people from each group will be utilizing their tickets home. We then move to the next round. Solos. Self-explanatory. Musicians may choose to write their own music or perform a piece. Theater must do a monologue with costumes. You will all be given budgets for your supplies. Dancers must choreograph a dance to the song of their choosing. It must run the whole song. You will have three days for this round.

"Following judging, six more from each group will be headed back to their rightful homes. The third round will be duets. Your partner will not be assigned. There is no in between—either both of you are cut, or both of you stay. So you must work together with your partner. Two pairs will be through. There will be three days for this round as well."

"Jeez, that's like no time," I whispered to Nikki, who nodded. We would usually work on a set for two weeks or more before we thought it was anywhere near good enough to perform.

"The fourth round will probably be the most challenging for all of you. You may not do your own art. You must choose something different."

_What? _

"You may work as a group, in solos, pairs, trios, whatever you want. But you may not utilize your own art in any way. It will be difficult, and after all judging is completed, four of each group will be gone. You will have five days."

And the last round?

"The last round."

Ah. Here we go.

"You will have ten days. You may work in solos or duets. You can stay with your art this time, and you must choreograph a show. A whole show. All of the work must be your own. The winners will be decided after this."

The room was deadly quiet.

"And that's the ITAC!" The sombre mood was broken as the woman finished her explanation. "The first round will start tomorrow. Please report to the auditorium after breakfast at nine AM, sharp. It's eight-thirty now. Lights-out at ten-thirty. Unpack, make yourself at home, whatever. You are dismissed."

We all stood up, and Savannah joined me and Nikki as we headed for the doors. The boy with the black hair sidled up next to Savannah, attempting to pass her, and I looked at him absently.

And I recognized him.

The guy at the airport! The guy with the black duffel like mine! Holy crap, it was him. I opened my mouth to say something; what, I didn't know. But within seconds he'd been swallowed up in the crowd, heading to what I could only assume to be the guys' dorm.

My mouth snapped shut as I felt Nikki grab of my arms and _drag_ me towards our dorm building.

"Jeezum, what's with the hurry?" I asked as she pulled me along, with Savannah speeding up so as not to be left behind.

"Sleep. Now." I heard Nikki mutter, her eyes trained on the building in front of us.

"But...it's not even nine pm..." I was confused, but rolled my eyes as she tugged on my arm harder.

"So? I like sleep." She glanced back at me quickly before turning towards the dorms once more. I felt someone bump into me as we walked, and glanced to the side to see the rest of the girls at ITAC walking just behind us. It looked like everyone was heading to bed early.

I saw one girl start walking even faster than Nikki, Savannah and me, a honey-colored acoustic guitar strapped over her back.

"Hey...Zoe!" The English girl dragging me shouted to the speed walking girl, waving slightly to her. She turned around quickly and walked backwards for a moment, waving back to her.

"Hey! Can't chat, have to call my parents!" She too had an English accent. I noticed this before she turned on her heel once more, before practically sprinting towards the block. What she said also reminded me that I had to fulfill my promise to the troupe on my fancy new webcam.

"You know her?" Savannah asked, though the answer as obvious.

"Yeah. She's the only other English girl, so we were clumped together on the way here. There's only one other English guy. Everyone else is foreign." She giggled slightly.

Then we were at the dreaded stairs. I stood at the bottom, Nikki already heading up them, my head tilted back as I gazed at the Stairs of Death. Heaving a deep sigh, I reluctantly started climbing.

By the time we'd reached our little room, I was nervously checking my watch every other second. Hadn't I agreed to call them all at nine England time?

I pushed the key card into the slotty thing on the door, and opened it, heading towards my bunk immediately. I did a ninja-like swing onto it, before unzipping my bag at breakneck speed to take out my laptop and webcam.

Meanwhile, Savannah and Nikki had entered the room also. The tall one was sorting out her case, _again_, and the nugget obsessed one had quickly grabbed a bag of what I assumed to be toiletries that had been resting on her bed (now covered with an assortment of clothing and food) before skipping into our shared bathroom.

I plugged my laptop into the power outlet By now, the screen had flickered to life giving me the wonderful background of me and Iggy making the most bizarre face we possibly could at the camera.

The gang had said they had downloaded a new software onto the computer, and I found it almost immediately: it was one of those new things that let you talk to as many people as you wanted, kind of a like a telescreen conference call.

I opened the software and it whooshed, a little blue circle covering Iggy's very attractive expression. I tapped my fingers on my bedspread as I waited, watching as Nikki came out of the bathroom dressed in black cotton pajamas her face now eyeliner-free. She threw her bag onto the floor, and managed to shove all of her items against the wall lined up with her bed, before wriggling underneath the covers somehow, grabbing her pillow and hugging it for some reason.

I checked my watch. "Its...five to nine. And you're in bed already?" She nodded.

"Jeezum," I heard Savannah mutter from beneath me. I grinned in agreement. I was about to say something as well, but was cut off by the mad influx of messages as my email opened. I looked at my screen to see ten messages from Iggy already, each saying 'GET YOUR ASS ON CALL RIGHT NOW, WOMAN'. I rolled my eyes.

I clicked on the 'call with webcam button', and adjusted the webcam so it was resting on the top of the screen. I shuffled around slightly so I was lying across my bunk; my feet near my pillow and my head near the mini-ladder.

As I connected, screens started popping up: first one of Iggy, then of Dylan, then of everyone else, one by one by one, until the computer screen was totally full of my friends. I pressed "start call."

"OMG. HEEEEY GURL HAAAY!" Iggy screamed immediately, grinning from ear to ear. And yes. He did actually say "OMG."

"I take it I'm not getting any sleep for a while then." Nikki said from her bed, looking up at me with a lopsided grin on her face.

"To be blunt, no." I said back, before turning back to my friends back at home.

"Who's that?" I heard Kenny ask from the back over the chatter from everyone else.

"One of my roommates, Nikki."

"...is she hot?"

"Iggy, you perv. I am not having you creeping on my roommates from across the Atlantic."

"You have more than one?"

"Two. Nikki and Savannah. End of conversation, you guys. I thought we were supposed to be doing a Kool-Aid toast? That's the whole reason my ass is here anyway." There were cheers from the other end and I grinned as they all raised their ready-made shots of Kool-Aid.

"What's Kool-Aid?" I heard Nikki ask. I dangled a packet down before pouring it into my glass, then adding a cup of water I had gotten from the bathroom earlier.

"Okay, I'm ready, you guys," I said. "Let's make it fast, though, because Nikki down there is gonna maul us if she doesn't sleep. Plus, the competition starts tomorrow."

Dylan smiled at me from his desk. I could see his posters of bands behind him. Sirens sounded faintly from someone's connection.

"Okay, everyone ready?" I asked, holding up my shot glass of red Kool-Aid.

"What the hell are you doing?" I heard Savannah say from across the room, but I ignored her.

"Got it," most of my best friends said. They all displayed theirs, and when I could see everybody's, Dylan counted down.

"Three," he said, "two...one..."

"Kick it up!" I said, as each and every person on screen did the same, and then we all knocked back our glasses and laughed.

"Anyone hot there?" asked Lesley, and I was about to deny when Nikki popped up, having climbed on her mattress.

"She's going to say no, but she'd be lying," she sang, and I poked her, but she continued. "She was practically _glued _by the eyes to this guy earlier."

"I thought I recognized him!" I defended myself.

"Are you going to—" Iggy started.

"Finish that sentence and I very well may fly back and murder you, Ig."

"Okay, okay, fine!"

"Anything else about Glue-man?" Ana asked, her eyes gleaming.

"No," I said, and Nikki laughed and retreated. "I'm exhausted, you guys," I continued, though I wasn't. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, 'kay?"

"Cool," Dylan said, and then people started to disconnect.

"Night," I said, when Iggy and Dylan were the only screens still active. They waved, and then I shut my computer, grinning like a fool and any trace of nervousness that had remained gone.

"See you in the morning, guys," I said to Nikki and Savannah before plugging in my headphones and falling asleep to soft music.

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**Okay. These are the only main OC's were bringing in here guys ... and Fang will speak to Max in the next chapter! Yes! The next chapter! :D**

**Oh ... and people have been wondering ... this is ****not**** a Miggy. **

**Fex: Oh, God. People have been freaking over whether it's a Miggy. It's NOT. xD **


	7. Chapter 7

**Blacks : Okay. First of all, to say we are ASTOUNDED at the number of reviews we received for that last chapter is a massive understatement. **

**Fex: She's not kidding. I was stalking the reviews page, and they're still coming...we got one today. 101? Holy fuu. O.o I'm just glad Blacks is the one getting all the emails. **

**Blacks : -.- yes. The strange thing is, I enjoy waking up to an obscene amount of emails each day. **

**Fex: Lawl. Anyway, I just have to say...this song? That we're using? Look it up. I am not kidding. It is the coolest thing I have ever heard, ever. In my life. It's called "A Mad Russian's Christmas," by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. **

**Blacks : Yes! Listen! Sorry about the time this took ... blame me ... *hangs head***

**Fex: LOL. Not totally your fault. (see bottom A/N) **

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"AAAAAAAAAIIIEGGHH."

That was the delightful sound I woke up to.

I shot bolt upright in my bed, looking around wildly, searching for the mad gunman who must have snuck into our room in order to draw such a noise from one of my roommates.

No. I looked over to see Nikki sitting up in her bed also, giving Savannah a glare that could rival mine. Well, almost.

"Please tell me why you woke me up at"—I checked the clock on my phone, which was lying beside my pillow— "half past seven in the morning with that ungodly sound. Before I jump down there and kill you." I threw in an extra glare for emphasis.

Nikki immediately pointed at our roommate, a pouting expression on her face. "She woke me up."

"...and this is a reason to scream _because?"_ I asked, disentangling myself from my sheets. There was no way I was getting back to sleep now, so I may as well start the day early.

"I like sleep. She interrupted it."

"You were _talking!_ I couldn't—" I cut Savannah's protesting off.

"I don't care. You woke her up. This made me wake up. That is bad." I threw the covers off and jumped down onto the floor, delighting in the way it made a whole bunch of stuff fall off of Nikki's bed. I heard her outraged squeak before I grabbed my bag and locked myself in the bathroom.

An hour later saw us running at breakneck speed toward the dining room. After Savannah and I had taken our five-minute showers and had gotten dressed in an impressive time, our slightly insane roommate had decided to take a half an hour shower and then spend ages deciding on a Mario hoodie and leggings. Which was when the _second_ announcement came through the intercom speakers telling us that breakfast would start in one minute.

The other two managed to get the doors open before the rest of their bodies slammed into the cold metal, running into the dining room and swerving to avoid a table. I, of course, did not swerve. Luckily there was no one sitting at it.

"What?" I asked, glaring collectively at my fellow competitors. I guess it would have been slightly more effective if I _hadn't _just run into a table.

I could feel their gaze on me. "Well? Aren't you going to help me up?" Savannah and Nikki rolled their eyes, before grabbing an arm each and hauling me up.

I headed over to the food bar and grabbed one of the blue plastic trays, slamming it down onto the metal bars much like I had the night before. I had piled my plate high with a whole manner of artery clogging foods such as bacon and sausages, trying my best at an English breakfast, and most probably failing.

I quickly grabbed a Coke (they're fantabulous for breakfast) and made my way over to the table I'd sat at the previous night, chatting to my roomies all the while. We ate our way steadily through our plates.

I couldn't help scanning for that black-haired guy again...of course I wasn't _really _looking...but yeah. Still.

We finished and were told to go to the auditorium again, so we did, sitting all together in a clump. Almost immediately, though, they separated us into the three groups and we were talked to separately. I could see a thin blonde man in all black talking to the theater group, and a young woman conversing eagerly with the music. A lithe man came over to us: he was definitely a dancer. I could recognize that body type anywhere.

"Hello," he said. "My name is David Archfield, and I'll be your mentor and one of your judges. As you know, this competition is largely independent, but I am here to help if you absolutely need something. Does everyone remember what the first round entails?" There was general nodding and a few murmurs of assent. "Good. In approximately five minutes, we will go to the dancer's practice room. Your theme for your group piece will be announced there."

"Theme?" someone shouted.

"You will be given one word," David Archfield said. "Your dance must be inspired by that one word. It could be anything from 'mourning' to 'kneecap.'" I smiled. This was something I recognized; we had been bored one day and Dyl had had us do that; come up with some choreography from one word or phrase. Iggy and I got 'balloon.' It ended up very amusing.

"In the meantime, I have been asked to you to explain the ground rules here," the man continued. "While on this campus, there is to be no alcohol, and there is to be absolutely no smoking. Any competitor found using any of these or, God forbid, performance-enhancing drugs, will be immediately disqualified and sent home, and all of your dreams will be over. Got it? Good." People nodded, including me.

"That's that, then. Let's go." David gestured for us all to stand up, and we did. He led the entire group of twenty-five out of the theater.

"Where d'you suppose we're going?" Nikki asked as we walked. I shrugged, playing with a loose thread on my sweatpants. I had brought mostly loose clothing, seeing as I was going to be dancing almost nonstop the next weeks.

"Somewhere new," I replied.

"No duh."

David Archfield opened double doors onto a huge room with wood floors, varnished so they were perfect for dancing on. Almost immediately, everyone took off their shoes and shoved them on a mat in the corner. I noticed the black-haired guy stoop to unlace Converse, and I did the same with my own.

"Here we are, in the room that you all will get to know extremely well in the duration of your stay," David said. "This is your practice room. Get used to it."

"Cool," Nikki muttered, and I nodded.

"Alright," David said. "I guess without further ado, you guys are free to start. You have all day. Break for lunch at noon, and all of you must be at lunch. Attendance will be taken. Starving yourself for the sake of practice is not only stupid, but dangerous. Don't do it." Everyone nodded. "Oh, your theme. You must base a dance off of staircases."

"Staircases?" I muttered.

"What the hell?" I heard the black-haired guy say from across the room.

"Have fun!" said David, waving and then turning to leave. "Remember, work as a group. Your sessions will be taped."

Well, no pressure or anything, right? I was starting to have second thoughts about this whole ITAC thing...

Just kidding. That would never happen. But I did feel the beginnings of nerves crawling around my skin. Staircases? I mean, seriously? Who bases a dance off of staircases? Besides Japanese girl bands, who can base a dance off practically anything.

Japanese girl bands...

"I have an idea," I said, stepping up. Everyone looked at me. Even the black-haired guy. His eyes were _dark. _

"Okay, so. You know Japanese girl bands, right? SNSD, Rainbow, whatever?"

I received a large amount of blank stares.

"...maybe not. Anyway. Generally, they have a bunch of girls dancing. Not really street dance, but it's not all airy-fairy ballet either. I had the idea that maybe we could get all of the girls doing something related to that, and then have the guys-"

"How is this related to stupid staircases?" someone said, obviously still pissy about our less-than-stellar team.

"I was getting to that, thank you. Anyway. We want a sort of...staircase effect, I suppose. Really the only thing we're supposed to do is get our theme across in our dance." I finished uncertainly, looking out at the faces in front of me.

"I like it," said a Neutrogena-pretty girl in a Southern drawl, stepping up next to me. "I have ideas already, but the thing is, we're not all the same style. Of dancing. Who does ballet?" She raised her own hand.

Several girls' and a few guys' thin arms joined hers in the air.

"Modern or jazz?"

About ten, including me and the dark-haired guy.

"Hip-hop?"

A bunch more, including Nikki.

"Exactly. That's why this is so obnoxious. I'm Layne, by the way."

"I'm Max," I added.

"I'm thinking merging of styles," a guy with dreadlocks in the back said. "Ballet and hip-hop together would be tight."

"We could work on some basic lifts," said one of the ballerinas, a thin girl with her hair in a ponytail on top of her head. "That could work for staircases."

Nikki found a whiteboard against the back of the practice room, and we all gathered around it. "Marker," I said, tossing one to her.

"Okay, so with your picture, we've got each of the four styles in a sort of staircase effect," she said. Up at the top, she drew twenty-five circles, then inked in the letters of everyone's style. There were seven ballerinas, eight hip-hop dancers, and ten that did mixtures of modern and jazz. It was a good idea, because it showed how many people we had to work with.

"But where should we start?" someone asked, and to my surprise, the black-haired guy stepped up.

Without a word, he took the marker from Nikki and started drawing neat circles, writing "CL" next to the second and third rows of people. From the way it looked, he was envisioning the ballerinas in the very back, the hip-hop people second, and the modern and jazz dancers in the front. I could already see it in my mind's eye, but something wasn't right.

"How will the audience be able to see the back row? I mean, no offense intended, but you guys"—I gestured to the ballerinas—"are not exactly the biggest people in the world."

"These," the guy said, pointing at the CLs, written in spiky handwriting.

"What are those?" one of the people in hip-hop asked.

He gave a half-smile, his eyes dancing. "Chorus lifts."

"You mean those things that the chorus people stand on to sing?"

"They never said we couldn't go literal," the guy said. "So, we start out the dance on a staircase." His voice was deep, and kind of soft, like he wasn't crazy about talking.

"But where are the chorus lifts?" a girl asked in an obnoxious voice.

He pointed. We all turned around. In an alcove off of the room, there were a whole bunch of them folded up and rolled in.

"Oh."

"Name's Nick," said the guy. "But you can call me Fang."

I couldn't help snorting. _But you can call me Fang? What are you? Some wannabe gangster? Agent? Hello, my name is...Double-O Fang. _

I crack myself up sometimes.

"Let's get them out, then, I guess," Nikki said, already going over to the little alcove. A couple guys and two other girls went over to help her, and with some pushing and maneuvering, we ended up with a sort of step-thing, two levels high, not counting the floor.

"So whataya think?" Layne asked, and everyone nodded in approval. "So...Fang...what did you say? Ballet in the back?"

"And hip-hop in the middle," I added.

Immediately, everyone went to their places, the seven ballerinas spreading out evenly on the top riser. Nikki climbed up on the other riser, followed by the rest of the hip-hop people.

"And as for us..." I said. "What about modern and jazz? Alternating?"

"That's a good idea," said a lithe girl in purple tights.

We made it happen.

We looked around at ourselves, and it was a pretty good setup. A vote was taken, and everyone liked the position.

"Wait," said one of the ballerinas. "Felicity, by the way. Don't we need music?"

_Crap._

"It has to be something we can all dance to," said the guy with dreadlocks. "Milan, and I ain't grooving to no fairy princess mel-o-dee."

"I'd rather not, either," said Nikki.

We all got off the risers and, by unspoken consent, sat down in a sort of half-formed circle.

"I can go get my laptop," someone offered, and it was named a good idea. He left.

"So," Fang said, coming to sit next to me. I looked at him warily and edged away. "Think my name's amusing?" He spoke with an American accent, but something less Southern than me. Virginia?

"Yes, actually," I told him. "Fang? Who thought of that? Your skater friends?"

"Who came up with _Max, _then?"

"That would be me," I said snottily.

"Nice, Maxine."

"Why does everyone assume Maxine?" I threw my hands up in annoyance. "It's Maximum. Max. I. Mum. For God's sake."

"Okay, fine, fine, Maximum." Fang got up to go talk to Layne, and I slouched against the wall in annoyance. Stupid _Fang_.

I watched absentmindedly as Nikki sat a few feet away from me next to Milan, seemingly in a deep discussion with him. Tactics, I supposed. My suspicion was confirmed when a few of the other people came to sit by them.

I took a glance around our sloppy semi-circle myself, noticing how obvious it was to me who was what kind of dancer. I hadn't noticed it before, but each person seemed to be dressed in accordance to their genre. Nikki had taken off her baggy green hoodie to reveal a ripped checked shirt over a black tank top, and Layne and the other ballet dancers were wearing...elegant looking outfits. Tights and such. Their pointe shoes were lined up in a corner. The rest of us had turned up in Converse, leggings or black pants and some form of fitted shirt.

My thoughts were halted by the guy from before jogging into the room once more, a laptop held under his arm. He grabbed a seat on the floor next to where Fang, Layne and a bunch of others were sat in a huddle of sorts, putting his computer on his lap and opening it.

"Toby, by the way," he said, looking up to see the rest of our group turned to him expectantly, all conversations hushed. "Yeah. Anyway, I have this wicked software on here that allows me to mix tracks. Anything you want, this baby can do it." Toby grinned wildly, and I noticed his slight Germanic accent.

"Cool!" I heard Nikki exclaim.

"Yeah..." My voice trailed off as my brain started whirring inside my skull, already trying to imagine a piece of music that would match our dance perfectly.

The rest of the group suddenly burst into mutterings, pairs conversing with each other as they wondered what we could dance to. I caught pieces of speech _'Rap', 'No, classical', 'something floaty' _heading towards me. Sat on my own, I had no-one to discuss with. So I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to block out the inane chattering of those around me.

That's when an idea slapped me round the face like a dead fish. Okay, ew, but the image worked. I considered the thought that people might think I was an attention seeker, this being my second big idea in ten minutes, but the amazing, fantastic, _brilliant_ piece of music that had just formed in my head was far too good to keep quiet about.

"I have an idea." I spoke loudly, so as everyone else could hear me. The speaking died down and I swore I could have seen _Fang's _ dark eyes fixed on me for a split second before he resumed tracing imperfections in the floor. But it might have been just a trick of the light.

"How many of you have heard of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra?" I asked, pushing off from the floor to stand up where I could speak better. The majority of our small-ish group raised their hands, looking mildly confused.

"Those are the ones that do the classical stuff, right?" Layne asked. "But with guitars."

I nodded. "Yeah, mostly Christmas stuff. Anyway...I went and saw them a couple years ago, and they have this one song...can I use the laptop?"

"All yours, babe," said Toby, clicking his tongue. I pulled it onto my knees and went to YouTube. Thank the Lord for wi-fi.

The search engine came up, and I typed in the song I wanted: _A Mad Russian's Christmas. _A version came up, and I clicked on it, punching the volume for the speakers.

Everyone sat in silence as the piano strains started.

"This is way too—" Milan started.

"Just wait for it," I told him.

The electric guitar came in.

See, this song was about the coolest thing I had ever heard. It remixed the Nutcracker into a totally rocked-out piece of amazingness. They had been amazing live.

"So what's up?" I asked when the song ended. Many people's eyes were closed, taking in the song.

There was silence as everyone mulled it over. I was actually beginning to doubt myself when a girl I hadn't really spoken to before, one of the ballet ones spoke up.

"I think it's brilliant." I smiled. Other people began saying their own sounds of approval, ranging from a whooped 'yeah!' (Nikki) to absolutely nothing (Fang).

"Ja. I like it," said Toby. "But I don't get to use my software?"

"I'm sure you'll have plenty of opportunities as the competition goes on," someone said.

The ballet dancers stood up in a group and headed over to the steps, one of two guys pulling out an iPhone as he walked, while announcing to the others that he could get the music off YouTube in an elegant French accent. I watched them for a moment as they worked out where they should stand, and begin warming up with those knee bending things, looking far more graceful than anyone should.

Nikki, Milan and the rest of the hip-hop group had noticed what the ballet dancers had started doing and followed suit, getting into positions and warming up, discussing dance moves all the while.

"...Maybe we should be doing what they all are." I heard a guy from our group say, standing up and brushing off his dark pants. "They seem to have the right idea. And having us all practicing at the same time can give us a clue on how to move together and all that kind of stuff."

I nodded, pushing off from the wall I was leaning on to stand in front of the other two groups of dancers. My ten fellow modern/jazz people stood near me so we were forming a kind of semi-circle, one or two stretching their arms in preparation for dancing already.

"I think we need to see who the strongest dancers are," a girl with an Indian accent put in, looking around at us all with a soft smile. "So then we can know who to put at the front. Because if we put weaker people there, they're the main focus, and that can bring the whole performance down."

I nodded. "Yeah. Even though we all got here, some of us are stronger at certain things than others. Maybe we could all do a few quick moves, and then vote together who the strongest are?" I suggested, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning to the side.

"Good idea."

"My names Nisha, by the way," the girl continued. "I think we should also introduce ourselves, or we'll all just be confused."

"Maximum. But call me Max," I said.

"Ben."

"Fang." Snerk. Fang.

"Gabriel."

"Zara."

"Hans."

"Daisy."

"Dianne."

"And Toby, of course."

"Okay, can we get dancing now? I really want to get started." I interjected, bouncing on the balls of my feet. "You go first? Just a few moves or something." I nodded at Nisha.

"Sure."

Each dancer performed a few moves thought up on the spot, of any genre, just to show how strong we were as dancers and where we would be best suited. I personally think that my jump-duck-twist-ripple move went quite well.

When Fang stepped up, he came alive. He performed a sequence of moves kind of like mine, but the fire that burned in his dark eyes when he moved was easy to see from miles away. I presumed, anyway, since in reality he was five feet from my face.

I noticed how a few were amazing dancers, but lacked the definition needed to dance up at the front. Those few seemed more than happy to dance a row behind.

"Fang should go in the middle," said Ben, and Fang nodded tautly. "And who else?"

"Max," Nisha said.

"Yeah," Zara agreed with her Irish brogue. "You guys look good together." Fang looked at her, and she blushed. "Dancing."

"You seem to have the same kind of style, pizazz, whatever," Ben added.

I secretly did a victory dance at the thought of being at the front for our first performance. I was glad to note that Fang didn't seem too pissed off at the prospect of dancing next to me.

"Okay. Positions are sorted..." Nisha said.

"Shall we start? Anyone have access to the song so we can practice to it?" I asked, looking for someone pulling out, I don't know, a boom box or something.

"I have internet access. It won't be very clear, but the volume goes up pretty high. We can use this maybe." Daisy pulled out a phone, flipping it open and pulling up a tiny internet tab. The whole group waited until the first few notes of our music came blasting out of her phone, and I grinned widely, dance moves already taking form in my head.

"This song makes me have so many ideas," said Gabriel, running hands through his pale blonde hair.

"Me too." Fang put in softly, looking over at me.

"Same," I said. "Everyone spill!" I was actually eager to hear Fang's ideas, after I had seen the way he moved. **(A/N because I can't resist: GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER.) **I wanted our dance to be a group production. Equal parts, not just created by one or two people. I could hear the other fifteen dancers performing their slowly forming routines, calling out to each other.

"Yeah. I have an idea for the intro too." Dianne said, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Sweet," I said.

"Let's get started, ja?" Toby laughed, cracking his knuckles. We all nodded.

_Kick it up, _I thought to myself, before smiling and wrenching my mind fully back to the topic in question: our sure-to-be-epic dance.

**Okaaaaay! Finished! Sorry again for the delay ... blame Blacks. Because it took her five and a half hours to write a stupid Shakespeare essay. Though that may have been because she was skype calling Fex the entire time. But do not worry! Just over a week, two boxes of chocolate biscuits (cookies for you Americans) and massive amounts of Drarry, and here is your chapter. We would love to hear your opinions! :) **

**Fex: Ah, yeah. Guess it's kind of both of our faults...Oh my God. That Drarry. Anyone ship Drarry? We do. And we would love to not feel alone in our obsession. **

**Again, LISTEN TO THAT SONG. IT'S EFFING AMAZING. I PROMISE.**

**Oh, and reviewing is always appreciated :) Seriously, it boosts our ego. Many of our emails feature phrases like "OHMYGOD NEW REVIEW I LOVE LIFE." **

**~Blacks and Fex**


	8. Chapter 8

**Fex: KSPLFFVVCDSSSFUUUUU.  
**

**Black: She read Angel.**

**Fex: *eyetwitch* Aegh...hgmphh...**

**Blacks : Just ignore her ... *shuffles away***

**Fex: Hn. I'm fine now. Sort of. But it was terrible. Any of you guys read it yet? *gags* **

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Three hours later, we were making serious progress and half-starved. We had a couple more meetings, in which we decided that the ballerinas were going to start, because the first eight bars of the song was purely soft piano and electric guitar. They had worked out this amazing slow turn, in their pointe shoes now, where the girls literally spun slowly like when you opened a music box, one leg up in the air, their bodies tipped forward on the lifts, propelled by the boys, who had one hand on their foot that was pointed straight up. Layne was the first one to master it, though everyone fell a few times: we acted as spotters underneath them.

Someone went to go find an ITAC official, and we were granted permission to use lighting as part of our effect. So we came up with this amazing idea...the song has four beats of piano and then two fast electric guitar notes. We synchronized the lighting to the music, so that the lights would be dimly on the ballerinas during the first four beats, flash twice fast on the left half of the lifts. Back to dim. Then when the next two guitar strums came, it would flash twice on the right. When all the instruments came in, the lighting would go up on us all dancing slowly. About forty seconds in, the beat changed to something much faster. Then we would really kick it.

The ballerinas had worked out the first six eight counts of their fast part already, and the rest of us were close to them. We had also figured out a tentative sketch of how the dance would go: moving up the levels of the chorus lifts was a big theme, though eventually we got off them for a bunch of inter-style lifts and routines that went by quickly.

The end we were planning was an epic finale, completing with total madness that we were going to somehow make look good, ending up back on the chorus lifts, which two hip-hop dancers were going to push forward.

Basically, it was one of the coolest things I'd ever done. Minus Piece Seven, of course. That still won.

The David Archfield guy came to get us at noon—we had totally lost track of time, all of us. Our ideas were coming together, and we had four more hours today and the whole day tomorrow to perfect it. We could probably finish it tomorrow, then have the last day (which was really a half-day, seeing as the judging took place after lunch) to rehearse like crazy.

I hadn't seen Fang in ages, because I was working on this sequence with Toby that I couldn't seem to get right, so I was surprised when he got his food and sat down across from me and Nikki.

"Hello," Nikki said, staring at him. He looked her up and down and blinked.

"So I was thinking," he said. "For the end. We're doing those lifts. And you and me are in the center."

"Yeah..." I said slowly, taking a bite of the pasta with marinara sauce I had gotten. The departments were sitting separately, probably going over their tactics and stuff.

"We need to come up with something insane for the end," he said. "I know the ballet people are doing a pyramid in the back and the hip-hop people are doing some sort of multi-person pose, and the pairs on either side of us are just doing basic lifts."

"So we need to do something better."

"Exactly."

"Like what?" I immediately thought of Iggy and my lift for Piece Seven. "I might have one..."

"Do tell."

I described it.

He nodded slowly. "I like it. It's kind of snappy, which would fit in ... I kinda like the idea of a sudden end. You get me?"

I nodded. "Mnnhmm. Sounds good." I glanced down at my plate of pasta smothered in red sauce. I picked up my fork and stabbed at my food before shoveling it into my mouth. In a ladylike manner, of course.

Cue derisive snickering.

"... D'you think they'll have chicken nuggets?" I heard Nikki say from next to me, looking wistfully at the food counter, her plate of salad sitting forgotten in front of her.

I rolled my eyes. "I don't know. Why don't you go look again?" I suggested, trying to not snigger at Fang's incredulous expression as he took in my zany friend. Looking determined, Nikki grabbed her tray and headed up to the food counter again.

"... You friend is weird." Fang said bluntly.

"I know. She's cool though." He raised an eyebrow at that and I couldn't help but laugh. "She is! She ... has a great personality. If a bit odd." He grinned.

"Anyway. Your friend choices aside, we should probably talk more about that lift ..." Fang suggested, before picking up his burger and digging in to it with gusto.

"Yeah. This lift ... it would have me straight above your head, with you supporting me here, and here." I pointed the back of my neck and the small of my back. He nodded. "Then I hold my arms out and bend one leg, the other out straight. We're both facing the audience, and it will kinda look like I'm stretched out above you. Does that make sense?" I pointed to him with my pasta speared fork.

"Yep. So now we need to work out how to get in position to be able to do that smoothly ..." He trailed off, looking thoughtful. I watched as he lightly traced patterns on the plastic table with his fingers, his head leant forwards and his hair flopping into his eyes. He suddenly snapped his head up, looking at me with a strange glint in his eye. "I have an idea."

"Coo-" I was cut off by him speaking once more.

"Do you have a notebook or something? I need to write this down somewhere before I forget ..." He got up from his seat and walked around the table before sitting down next to me.

"Uhm, sure." I said, digging through my bag until I found my battered purple spiral-bound notebook and a partially chewed pencil.

"Thanks." He said, grabbing the items out of my hands and setting them on the table in front of him, already scribbling furiously. He drew a mixture of lines and circles to represent dancers and where they would be moving, and then started sketching a bunch of squiggles at the front, near where we would be standing.

"Okay. So at the moment, your last move is that head swoosh thing; I don't know what it's called. After you've done that, d'you think you could do a flip or cartwheel or something to here?" He asked, tracing the pencil along one of the lines and tapping the spot where he wanted me to go. I nodded.

"Yeah, sure."

"Good. I would be standing behind, and I was thinking of doing a forward flip so I was in position. Most of us are doing outrageous moves at this point so it won't look entirely out of place. Then I kind of ... catch you. You jump? Then it's really easy for me to get you in position and support you. It'll all be over really quickly, and in my head it looks really effective ..."

"That's going to take an insane amount of practice," I said, trying to decipher his hurried scribbling, becoming away that in the process, our heads were almost touching.

He looked up and gave a half smile without opening his mouth. "Then I guess we'll just have to practice insanely."

"Dammit," Nikki said dramatically as she came back.

"No dice?" I asked her.

"No," she answered sadly, picking up her fork and digging back into her salad. "Savannah says hi, though."

"Cool."

"Her fingers are bleeding from playing so much," Nikki went on. "She told me that they gave her this crazy piano part she's busting her head trying to learn."

"She'll be fine," I said, still engrossed in figuring out the placing for Fang and my lift. I wasn't overly crazy about using the Piece Seven lift with someone besides Iggy, but I couldn't deny that it really was an amazing lift.

I was also sort of jealous that Fang had come up with a tactic for both me and him to use in order to get exactly where we needed to be in less than five seconds.

This guy was a definite threat, though of course two from each division won.

They gave us half an hour for lunch, and they actually had people patrolling and asking if we had eaten. They obviously did not want any anorexia on their hands, which of course wasn't really a problem with me. I ate healthy, because as a dancer you had to, but I ate enough to keep me more than going.

When they let us go back to practice, we had a sort of group powwow. We agreed that we had to finish our parts in the next two hours, and then we could spend the remaining three trying to pull it all together. Fang and I had our group parts pretty much down, so I told our group we were going out in the hallway to practice our ending. They agreed, as long as we were back half an hour before we were supposed to start collaborating so we could run the whole of our part together.

The hallway was made of completely unforgiving tiles, under which was definitely concrete, so Fang went back inside and dragged out a mat. You know, in case he dropped me and I fell to my death.

"So the first thing," I said, when Fang looked at me expectantly with dark eyes, adjusting his black t-shirt, "would be to just make sure you can lift me. Because we're gonna get a whole lotta nowhere if you can't."

He rolled his eyes and held out his arms. "Come on, then."

I had a moment of disconnect and _wait, WTF..._before I figured it out. Oh. Alright then.

"Ready?"

"No," he said sarcastically.

I took a deep breath. It was just like with Iggy. Except I hadn't known this guy since I was five...and he had black hair, not blonde, and eyes that were so dark I could see the buzzing fluorescent lights in them. Other than that, exactly like it.

I ran and jumped, and he caught me easily, not even huffing from the effort. His arms felt (if it was possible) even more supportive than Iggy's under my back and knees.

"See?" Fang said mockingly, putting me down.

"Fine, fine," I said. "You got that. So what we need to do next is get my flip right...I've done them before but I'm not exactly sure what you want me to do."

The next ten minutes were spent figuring out the angle he wanted me to end up towards. Accounting for the chorus lifts, we came up with a tentative plan. I would be the last one to mount the chorus lifts, and I would stand directly in front of Fang. Doing a backflip would give me enough momentum to slam my feet down and then launch myself directly back up. Fang would be on his knees, and we'd go straight into the lift. He proved he could do that too. Though not without smiling cockily as he did so.

So we dragged out a block that would raise Fang approximately the height that he needed to catch me, and we practiced.

He was, dare I say it, really good at stuff like this. He caught me every time except for one, and even then I managed to fall on the mat. But if I must say so, I did pretty good myself.

We went back inside and practiced with our group a few more times, and then everyone got up on the lifts in the position we were going to start in.

"This is just a test run, obviously," said Layne.

"We'll stop and fix things as we go," added Nikki.

"Ready?" Toby said, fingers poised by a portable iPod speaker he had managed to get during lunch.

"Yep," a few people said, and Tony pressed play, running to his spot at the end of the first row of risers.

The ballerinas started spinning.

Damn, we were good. Of course not perfect, because of course we had to stop and perfect the dance innumerable times before we would stop running into each other, but it was all coming together. I didn't think we would finish today, but definitely really early tomorrow.

It got to the point where none of us could move any more—we were _that _tired. Layne groaned as she took her point shoes off her bruised feet and stowed them in her bag.

Luckily, not long after that point, we were set free. Nikki, Savannah and I met in our room and Nikki and I fell on the floor, ready to relax for the hour and a half we had before dinner.

**Well, there ya go ;) sorry it took a little bit long, but you see, Blacks is going on holiday tomorrow. D: (cue sad Fex face) But we shall be back soon! Promise! Bear with us!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Blacks : HELLO MY ADORING FANS!**

**We now have a 'most interesting review' competition! Last chapter's winner was Crazymax13...by a lot...and I mean by a LOT.**

**Fex: ...Blacks? About that ego...xD Oh, yes, the review contest. Crazymax13. Like, what? Seriously, y'all...go read her review...it made me laugh. UPDATE OR I EATITH YO' SOUL FO' CEREALZEZ! I should start saying this. Anyway. Leave us an interesting review! We may feature it in the next chapter :P **

**Blacks : Indeedydo. Enjoy el Chapter-o! Complete with added Faxness!**

**Fex: Yep! Oh, and the hair dye that Savannah gets? ADAM LAMBERT, BABY! /heart**

* * *

"She's fallen asleep." I looked up to see Savannah walking out of the bathroom, her hair wet and piled on top of her head, complete with a blue tinge.

"What?" I said, rubbing my eyes. I'd been awake for all of fifteen minutes, after falling asleep briefly due to the extent of our rehearsing. I was woken my Nikki climbing up the ladder and poking me to ask if I had any latex gloves. It transpired that said gloves were needed because my roommates had decided to dye each other's hair, and Nikki had dropped the disposable gloves that came in the box in the toilet or something. Which led me to here, struggling to keep awake with my American roomie stood in front of me with an exasperated expression.

"I mean, I was just putting the dye in her hair and the next minutes she's slumped over the bath. I thought she'd died or something until I heard her breathing. I swear, that girl _never_ stops sleeping..." She gradually trailed off as she walked around the room, adjusting the towel wrapped around her neck and glancing at the clock.

"Right." I said, standing up and rummaging through my case to find something to wear. After rehearsing solid for so many hours I definitely needed a shower and a change of clothes to feel human again.

"When will the bathroom be free?" I asked, extracting a pair of jeans and a shirt from my case and shoving them under my arm.

"Ehm..." She looked at the clock once more. "Give us a few minutes to wash the dye out of our hair. And dry it. Then it'll be all yours. I don't need a shower after; I haven't been dancing. Nikki might though." Savannah walked over to the bathroom again and opened the door, saying something along the lines of "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty" before the door closed.

I ignored the shriek emanating from the small room a few moments later and set about finding my toiletry bag, which I last saw on my pillow this morning. I occupied myself for the next half an hour by sorting out my clothes; I hadn't noticed it before, but we'd each been given a small set of drawers in various places around the room, and I offloaded most of what I'd brought in my own.

"Ta daa." I heard Nikki say in a sing song voice as she and Savannah emerged from the bathroom.

"Took long enough." I mumbled before glancing up at them. "Oh- wow. It's very ... bright." My two roommates were now sporting electric blue hair do's, making them look strangely alike. "Any reason for blue?"

"Adam Lamber-"

"I was bored of black." Nikki spoke over Savannah who rolled her eyes briefly at me.

"Yes. Adam Lambert inspired me!" Savannah said, twirling around Nikki, her hair swooshing around her. She made her way over to her bed and flopped down on it, long legs stretching right to the end. I noticed our English roommate glaring slightly.

"Stupid long legs..."

Savannah grinned at her.

"Yes, well. I'll leave you two while I shower. You need one too, Nikki?" She shook her head.

"I smell awesome."

"Right." I left her to it and headed into the bathroom for my shower, deciding to ignore the bright blue stains covering the white tiling.

* * *

"Fang is _so_ checking you out, Max."

"Shut up, Nikki." I said, ignoring the feeling of eyes staring at my back as I examined the food before me. He wasn't _checking me out_, just obviously looking at my undeniable beauty. Ha. Ha.

"Ugh. This all looks gross." Savannah said from my left and we both nodded in agreement. The trays in front of us looked vile today; piled high with soggy cabbage and what I guessed to be some form of meat.

"I don't care. I'm hungry. But there is a fat chance of me eating pheasant." Nikki said, finding some leafy looking substance in the middle of the stuff supposed to be food.

"_Pheasant?_" I asked incredulously.

"Yep. It stinks! I'm surprised they're serving it actually, it's generally only what posh people eat."

"Freakin' English..." I muttered, taking another look at the cabbage-y type stuff and deciding against it. "Ugh. You know what? I might just have a drink today."

"Yeah, same..." Savannah said, but Nikki just shrugged, looking down at her plate of...stuff with a slight frown.

I grabbed a Coke and we returned to 'our' table, where Fang was already sat with Milan, Toby and Diane. "Could we squeeze any more people on this table?" I asked, maneuvering onto a seat between Diane and Fang. Savannah and Nikki managed to sit in between Milan and Toby, and I couldn't help but notice the blush that rose up Nikki's face at her proximity to the dreadlocked boy beside her.

"...Awesome hair, dude." Milan spoke up, and Nikki's blush increased, clashing with her vivid hair.

"Thanks."

I ignored the conversations that broke out around the table as Fang spoke to me. "So, are you trying to starve yourself?" He looked pointedly at the unopened Coke in my hands. "Won't they hurt you for that, or something?"

"No. Have you seen the gunk they're serving today? No, thank you. I think I'd rather be hungry today," I said, looking at the plates on the table, all filled with inedible looking stuff.

"Hmn. You know..." Fang paused, looking at me uncertainly before continuing, "there's a restaurant just outside of here. Whetherspoons or something like that. Looks good."

I said nothing for a moment, mulling over what he had just said. "You mean, us go there? Like, the whole table?"

He smirked. "No. Just us. I think a group of seven teenagers – two of which have bright blue hair – would be pretty noticeable. We'd be able to sneak out for a few hours, no problem."

_Was he asking me out?_ I ignored the tiny voice in the back of my brain telling me that _yes, he was_and assured myself it was purely as friends. Though that didn't stop the tiny shiver of excitement that raced down my spine at the prospect of spending a few hours alone with Fang. "Uhm, sure. But I don't have any money on me ..."

"I'll pay." I stopped myself from speaking out at this, being able to pay for myself and all, but I was so damn hungry at this point that I didn't care.

"Let's go." I stood up, half dragging him with me.

"Where are you going?" Diane asked, breaking of her conversation with Toby to glance up at us. I deliberately ignored Nikki and Savannah, who were raising their eyebrows provocatively at me across the table. I mouthed _Shut up _when I was sure Fang wasn't looking, but they just laughed.

"Out. For dinner. I'd rather not see my food again tomorrow morning," Fang said, looking pointedly at everybody's plates.

"Dude, at least let us come with you!" Nikki moaned.

"Bye!" I grinned, ditching the Coke and fluttering my fingers tantalizingly. "Have fun."

"BITCH," she called after me.

"I KNOW!" I called back. Fang snorted.

Sneaking out 101: Tell them you lost a cell phone.

It works.

Five minutes later, Fang and I were free, walking out on the streets of London. It was still light outside, though the first hints of dusk were on the horizon. People were still out and about, and there was the restaurant Fang had talked about: Whetherspoons.

"What a weird name," I commented.

"Hope the food's better than the name."

"Anything is better than the crap in there."

"True."

God, this was so weird. I mean, going out to dinner with guys was totally not strange, seeing as, you know, Iggy and the dance troupe and all of that. But just one-on-one? With some barely-met and totally hot fellow dancer guy named Fang-not-Nick?

Dude.

A woman in a black cocktail dress smiled at us as we came in. "Date night?" she said carefully in her British accent. I could feel myself flush.

"Not tonight," Fang said.

Well, WTF was that supposed to mean.

"Ah, alright then," the woman said, looking a bit disconcerted. "Well, follow me. Just two, then?"

"Yes," I said, before Fang could. She nodded and walked away, heels clacking.

We followed.

She gave us menus, and I eagerly flipped mine open, looking at all the food. Thank God, it was cheap, so I wouldn't feel overly guilty about Fang paying. Which, now that I remembered it, that fact made my cheeks go a little warm around the edges. It was simple stuff. Some British foods I'd never heard of. I remembered that "chips" were French fries in England.

I ordered an orange juice, and Fang had water.

"So," I said, at the same time Fang said "Um..."

"Where are you from?" I asked. _Ohmygod, Max. You noob. You pathetic, pathetic noob._

"Um, Virginia," he said. "You?"

"Georgia," I said. "Savannah."

"Savannah? Isn't that one of your..."

"Roommates, yeah, I know. She loves the irony."

Fang tapped a straw against the condensation building up on his water glass. "Why'd she die her hair?"

"She says that she and Nikki got bored while I was asleep, and Savannah had a box in her suitcase, for an unknown reason."

"Ah."

"So." I said, taking a sip of my juice. "How's life over in the guys' dorm then?"

Fang looked up at me for a second before swirling a couple of the ice cubes in his drink. "Fine. Nothing interesting."

"Oh? How are your roommates then?" _Max, you idiot. _

"Normal." He grinned, clearly making a dig at my blue-haired friends. "I have two; Tom and Toby."

"You room with Toby? Cool. What about Tom?"

"He's English. Acting." And that was that.

"Oh, okay then." There was silence for a few moments, and I felt increasingly awkward as Fang ignored me and scanned the menu. "Nikki was saying yesterday about how there's only three English here, her, this girl called Zoe and Tom. Heh...weird, huh?" I felt like slapping myself._ Max, stop talking now. You sound like a lovestruck prepubescent Justin Beiber fangirl._

Before Fang could reply, however, a waitress came over to our table, notebook at the ready.

"Are you ready to order?" she asked sweetly, looking directly at Fang and flicking her blonde hair slightly. I guess I didn't leave the sluts back in America, I thought, seeing how her blouse had the top three buttons undone and she was sticking her chest out in Fangs direction.

"Sure. I'll have the chilli con carne," Fang said, leaning his chin on his hand disinterestedly. I struggled to not roll my eyes.

"Spicy noodles please." I said, smiling just as sweetly back and enjoying the flash of annoyance that went through her pale blue eyes.

"Thank you. I'll get right on it." I watched as she sashayed in her tight black skirt away from us.

"I just have the chicks all over me," Fang said nonchalantly, trying to suppress a grin.

"Oh yes. I'm just _swooning_ for you as I sit here, Mr. Romeo," I chuckled, glad that the sudden tension between us disappeared.

"Of course you are."

"Indeed." I paused, wondering what to say. I didn't want us to lapse into silence again like before. "So, Romeo, tell me more about you."

He looked startled for a brief moment, before his usual mask of indifference returned. "Not much to say really. I have two parents," I rolled my eyes. "And a little brother and sister."

I grabbed onto this. "Ooh!" I cringed on the inside at how girly I sounded. "What are their names?"

"My sister's Angel. Well, Angelica, but no one calls her that, she gets this look on her face if you try. Curly blonde hair, big blue eyes, the whole thing I guess. She's seven next month. Gazzy is—" My eyebrows raised at that one. "—ten. He's called Zephyr, but we call him The Gasman. Gazzy for short."

"Any reason why-"

"Don't ask." I shut my mouth. By the sounds of it, I didn't want to know. "So, what about you?" He asked, taking a big gulp of his water.

"I can't say I'm particularly interesting either." He smirked at that. "I have a mom, no dad, and a little sister."

"Something in common then, I see," he said, and I was grateful he didn't ask about my dad.

"So it seems. Ella's fifteen. She's the complete opposite of me. Loves fashion, pink, anything girly. She and her best friend, Nudge, are always hanging out in her room doing each other's hair." Fang laughed quietly, hearing the annoyance in my voice.

"Poor girl, having to deal with you all day."

"Hey! I'm not that bad! You've only known me for a day."

"What can I say, I'm perceptive." He gave me an evil smirk.

"Shut up. Anyway, any friends? Or are you the loner you look," I said, grinning back. He opened his mouth to reply but was cut off as our food arrived, thankfully served by a different waitress who wasn't staring at Fang like he was a piece of meat.

"Yes, I do have friends, contrary to your beliefs. What about you?" he said mockingly, grabbing a forkful of his chili and eating it slowly.

"Yes, actually. Quite a few. But Iggy's my best friend."

"...Iggy?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Gazzy?"

"Touché."

"Anyway, I've been friends with Iggy for about five years. He's great. A complete idiot, but he's great." I said around my noodles.

"So there isn't any romance between you two?" Fang cocked an eyebrow, looking at me over his fork.

"Ew!" I exclaimed. Iggy...and me...no. Just...no. "Never. That's just a gross thought! I am _quite_ happy to remain single, thank you very much." I said, taking a sip of my drink and trying to banish any thoughts of me and Iggy.

"You sound like you're in denial."

"Okay, I've known Iggy since I was twelve. He's blind and perverted and an amazing dancer and absolutely fantastic, and he gave me this..." I fingered the wing necklace. "...but no. That is a scary idea."

Fang inspected the necklace hanging just under the hollow of my throat. "It's pretty. He's blind?"

"His foster mother helped pick it out."

"Ah."

For someone who didn't talk much, Fang could get use out of the few words he used. If, say, Nudge were to tell me that my necklace was pretty—squee, by the way, that Fang had said so—it would have gone something like this.

"OMG, Max, your necklace is fawesome! I mean, it's just so little, and the wings, and it looks like it was meant for you! Iggy's so nice to you. I wish I had a friend like that, but all the guys at my school are jerks and I hate them and I can't believe that you don't have a boyfriend yet! I bet Iggy would ask you out if you gave him a chance, and ooh, Dylan definitely would, you know he's been half in love with you forever, and I can't believe that Iggy gave you that! Is it silver? Or sterling? Or just knockoff? It looks real. OMG, I want one. It's so great. I love it."

Fang said "It's pretty," and those two words said more than Nudge ever could.

Aaand now I sound like a pathetic sap, so let's get on with the dinner.

My noodles were fantastic, and I stole a bite of Fang's chili about ten minutes into dinner. His was just as good, though a little rich for my taste, so I went back to my own.

"God, how spicy is this?" Fang said, making a small face, and only then did I realize that a bite of my noodles was dangling from his fork. I laughed at his expression.

"Pretty," I responded. "It's good, though."

"If you say so." Fang picked up his spoon again and went back to the chili.

We talked. Somehow, my criminal past got brought up.

"So, Nikki may or may not have let slip you got arrested," Fang said easily, taking a sip of his second water.

"Oh. That."

"So, who'd you murder?"

"No one!" I said hotly, and he laughed at me. "Really, no one."

"So what'd you do? I've never been arrested, myself, but I've come close."

"For what?"

"Indecent exposure."

I stared at him.

"Joke."

Oh.

"Anyway, so really, what for?"

"I vandalized a house."

His eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch.

"I had an excuse. They gave up Iggy."

"He's a foster child?"

"Yeah." I fidgeted. I wasn't sure exactly how I felt about giving up that particular piece of information, but if it was going to be to anyone, I guess Fang was an okay choice. He didn't seem like the gossiping type. In fact, the image of Fang gossiping actually made me laugh out loud a little, which earned me a weird stare from both Fang and the waitress that had come to refill our drinks, though I wasn't even done with mine yet.

"I hate how they do that," Fang said, staring at his newly-filled glass.

"Me too!" I exclaimed. "I mean, we're done with our food. We're only gonna be here another ten minutes. They think I can drink this gigantic thing before we leave?"

"Such is the plan of the restaurant."

"Hmn. Ugh, I don't want a dessert, you?"

"Nah. I just wanna get back." I worried for a moment that it was because he didn't want to spend any more time with me, but then I saw him try to stifle a yawn. "After today I'm so tired."

"Same. I tried to get some sleep before dinner but Nikki woke me up asking if I had any latex gloves."

"...I won't ask."

"It's best not to."

"I'm never gonna finish this." Fang said, indicating his still full drink in front of him.

"Me neither. Should we pay?" I asked, already catching the eye of a waiter a few tables away from us.

"Sure." Fang stood up and threw a wad of unfamiliar money on the table.

"English?" I asked, and he nodded.

"Got it at customs when I came through." Ah. I had forgotten. I made a mental note to do that.

We nodded to the woman at the entrance to the restaurant as we left. She winked at us.

* * *

"Kick it up!" I called down the line to the troupe, chugging my Kool-Aid at the same time.

"Max, we misssss youuuu," Iggy whined through the connection at me, and I smiled.

"Get eliminated so you can come back to us," said Dylan.

"No! That's a terrible thing to say!" Ana reprimanded.

"Yeah, Max, win it," Lesley told me.

"Thanks, guys. I miss you, too."

"I want to meet your roommates."

"Iggy. Shut up. Speaking of which, where's Nikki? I only just noticed." I spoke down to Savannah, hoping she was still awake. Not that she could be asleep, what with Iggy's screeching and all.

"Hot date with Milan, I think," she said, and I could almost _hear_ her rolling her eyes.

"Only one left for me ..."

"Iggy, I will fly over and punch you if you keep hitting on my roommates that, incidentally, you have never actually seen, trans-Atlantic." He flinched. "Anyway, I have to go...it's ten here now, and I have a whole day's rehearsing ahead of me." I sighed.

"BYE!" My friends shouted down the line before I clicked off of it, closing my laptop and placing it at the foot of my bed.

"So you didn't tell them about Fang?" Savannah asked from below me.

"Dude. Iggy would tease me for days, telling me to name the baby after him." I said, crawling under my covers and smirking as I saw Nikki's empty bed.

"Ah. I see." I could hear her yawning around her words. "Night."

"Night."

* * *

**Today I found out, that in America, chilli is spelt chili. I am shocked.**

**Fex: Yes, it is. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I feel I must add an outtake section...**

**See, this is what I meant to write: **

"**He's blind and perverted and an amazing dancer and absolutely fantastic, and he gave me this..."**

**And I didn't end up writing fantastic. I ended up writing FANGtastic.**

**How awkward would that have been? **

"**...absolutely fangtastic!" **

"**Excuse me?" **

**xDDDD **

**Well, the next one should come quicker, since Blacks is back from her holiday :) don't forget to review!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Fex: HEY, GUYS. :D**

**Blacks : I WANT TO BE A MARSHMALLOW!**

**Fex: She has been saying this ALL WEEK. xD But really, guys, sorry times a million for the lack of updates. This time I was the one on holiday, and Blacks was the one with mounds of homework.**

**Blacks: Homework is a bitch. Yes, so I was doing a hole manner of boring things while Fex here was in Florida!**

**Fex : Yep! Wizarding World of Harry Potter, whaddup? Anyway. Winner, BY FAR of the Most Interesting Review Contest : Bob The Other Zombie.**Nervous? Nah. Not me.

* * *

Okay, maybe a tiny bit jittery, and maybe a tiny bit of something else that was definitely not nervousness.

At least my roommates shared my sentiments.

I got up to find Nikki wide-eyed on the floor, chin resting on her kneecaps as she absently played with leggings on the carpet next to her. As I climbed down from the top of my bunk, her only greeting was "Oh my God."

"Feeling it already?" I teased her, and she shot me a glare of pure death before hauling herself up and actually making moves to put on the leggings. She selected one of her many hoodies and threw it across her bed.

I found my own sweatpants and slipped them on, though we'd just be removing them soon, anyway. The ITAC had helpfully provided rooms full of costumes and things that we might need, and we were granted access to them this morning.

"Where's Savannah?" I asked, being as it had just occurred to me that she wasn't in sight.

Nikki shrugged.

"I'm right here," a calm voice from somewhere to my right said, and I looked up to see my other blue-haired roommate sitting cross-legged in grey sweats and a faded green t-shirt, ponytail on top of her head. On top of the dresser.

"Um, hi?" I poked her knee, and her green eyes flew open.

"Oh, hey Max," she said, smiling. "I'm meditating. And finger-stretching." Indeed, her fingers were contorted in ways that should not be possible, twisted back over themselves. "Is Nikki awake?"

"Here." Attendance was complete.

Savannah slid her legs off the dresser and jumped down. "So, how was Milan?"

"Oh, shut up," Nikki said, blushing. "Today's not the day."

My interest was instantly perked. "So it's true, that's where you were?"

"We were practicing!" she insisted. I quirked an eyebrow. "Okay, so maybe we talked some and kind of forgot to practice, but, you know..."

We let that one go for the time being. All of us were too...not nervous...to say much else. Our room was rather quiet, for once. Nikki blow-dried her hair and we headed down to breakfast.

Same story there. I filed it away in my head for the future: day of competition and judging at ITAC=complete silence in the dining hall. I grabbed French toast and sat with Nikki, Fang, Toby, and Nisha. Who were all silent. Though Fang gave me a half-smile when I sat down, he immediately went back to eating, staring at the table.

Alright, so all of us were a little nervous. I could see Savannah across the room, sitting with a group of music people, drumming her hands against the table. She was tapping out some sort of piano piece, I could tell.

That was when I noticed that my own feet were marking the dance moves under the table.

We finished breakfast and split the dining hall quickly―the more time to practice. We were to have until noon, then made to eat, then given another hour to digest and finish up practicing. Half an hour for setup backstage (more for the drama and music people than us), then at one-thirty it was showtime.

Cue wide-eyed Max expression. It was so freaking soon.

"Anybody else feel like vomiting their organs out?" Toby joked, but people just cringed. We headed for the costume storage wing.

Then, of course, we realized that we hadn't even talked about costumes. Not for a second.

We held an emergency group conference.

"They have to look right together," said Layne, picking at a French manicured nail. "But they have to be different."

"We should have tutus," said one of her ballerina friends. "At least in the beginning, since, you know, we're doing traditional."

"But what about later? Will they still look...right?" I heard Nisha ask from behind me.

"So we rip them off for the finale," one of the male ballet dancers said, with a slight accent I couldn't place.

"I don't know ... maybe we should just wear our usual dancing gear. Then it will show more a divide in the 'stairs'." I said, nervously biting on one of my nails.

"Can I wear a tutu?"

"Nikki. No, you cannot wear a tutu, you're hip-hop." I rolled my eyes.

"Awh." She looked crestfallen, but soon perked up as she saw some sort of purple baggy piece of clothing hanging on one of the many clothes racks lining the walls of the costume wing. I assumed it was a shirt, and she skipped over to it looked it over, nodding to herself.

"Yeah, I think we should go with Max. No stress." Fang said from a few feet away, his dark eyes flicking over to me briefly. I ignored the tiny shudder that raced down my spine.

I heard everyone murmuring their agreement as they automatically split into three groups and searched for outfits. I could see Savannah at the end of the wing, sifting through a rack of something sparkly. I felt my modern and jazz group cluster loosely around me and select a section of rack each and begin looking.

"Leggings or dark pants, guys. Oh, and we should all wear the same shoes."

"Jazz shoes," Fang said, pointing to a wall which was covered by a sort of bookshelf. Except that it was covered with shoes. Black shoes, perfect for dancing on any type of surface. I had danced in them before, but Converse were easier when we were on the street, since you could ruin the jazz shoes easily. And they were ridiculously expensive.

In the corner of my eyes I saw a navy blue tank top, and I grabbed it and held it against me. It was pretty unisexual, which was good since we wanted to all be dressed the same. A bit of hunting found a bag with about forty of these tops, different sizes, all identical.

"Here," I called. "Will these work?"

My fellow dancers came over to inspect what I had found. It was simple, chill, and easy to move in. It was quickly agreed on, and I tucked the bag under my arm. Perfect, except for...

"You realize that'll look terrible with black pants," Toby pointed out. I reexamined the color and found that he was right.

"Ahaha, guys, look at this," I heard Nisha say. She was holding up a bag of silver leggings, laughing. "They're so weird!"

But I saw that Toby was looking at them in a whole different manner.

"No," Fang said flatly.

"Seconded," I winced.

"You don't understand," Toby started. "There will be lights on us. They look stupid now, but imagine us in the dark. The ballerinas are in the back. The lights come up, and bam, we sparkle."

"I don't do sparkle." I almost lost it at the image of Fang in those pants. No, not in that way, you pervs. In a "good God, just no" way.

"Fine, look dumb, then," Toby grumbled.

But Daisy stepped up. "I like it," she said, and everyone stared at her. "I'm not kidding. I used to be a videographer, at school dance concerts and things. Stuff like this looks phenomenal."

This was the worst idea since the funding of the pen that writes in outer space (the Russians just used a pencil...), and I was going to regret this for absolutely forever, but...

"Okay," I sighed. "Let's just give it a try."

Stares.

"You are not serious," Nisha said, wrinkling her pert nose.

"Yeah...I am..."

"You've all gone bat-shit," proclaimed Fang. I shot him a glare.

"Think this'll fit?" I asked, going over to the bag and picking out one pair of the shiny bottoms. I didn't bother checking the sizes; England had different sizes to America and God only knew I would never work them out.

"Yeah, sure. Looks like you can fit into it." Nisha nodded.

"Great," I mumbled. We would try them on after lunch. "Okay guys, we good?"

Everyone reluctantly nodded.

"Okay," I said, dropped the bag with the shirts next to the mass of silver, then went to get shoes.

Everyone else did the same. Fang looked like he wanted to strangle me. I gave him a coy smile and he rolled his eyes, tossing the costume over his arm.

We all had our costumes then, and suddenly we were at a loss for what to do. A temporary loss. "Okay," I sighed again. "I'm going to the dining room. I need to do something productive or I'll scream." They all nodded in response. I got back to the dining room to see the majority of the other two groups sat in circles, talking.

I started doing leg stretches however, smiling at Savannah when she waved over, smirking at her black sparkly hat. I heard a few screams and deducted that Nikki was heading over here, hopefully with the rest of our group. I straightened up just in time to see them, and we all went to the practice room together.

"You ready?" I asked, walking over to where they all were.

"No," Nikki said.

"Yes. Let's get rehearsing, I want this perfect," Fang said, smirking slightly as I did another warm-up.

"Sir yes sir! That's the attitude." I said. "Right. Warm-ups!"

We did them.

Milan and two other boys rolled out the chorus lifts, and we watched as they set them up. Layne tightened the laces on her pointe shoes and stepped up to her place delicately.

Fang leaned down to me as we took our place in the front. "You owe me for those pants," He murmured, closer to my ear than I probably would like.

"Oi! Lovebirds!" Nikki threw a piece of her costume at Fang's head before dashing up to her own place, vibrating the lifts. "We're starting!"

Fang shot her a look of displeasure. She waved sweetly.

We stepped up to the middle of the first row.

Toby pressed play on his laptop and rushed to his spot on my left.

And then we danced.

* * *

Okay. So maybe, possibly I was a bit nervous now. Just a little bit.

Lunchtime brought twenty-five very not-hungry teenagers. Actually kind of sick-to-their-stomach teenagers. We got our first taste of how sadistic the ITAC officials could be, though, because a scary-looking woman that Fang and I dubbed "Food Hawk" forcibly hauled up Layne and Nisha, forcing them to eat something, though they protested they weren't hungry. She didn't stop watching our table until everyone had a plate of at least salad in front of them.

"Why?" Nikki asked, grumbling and taking a tiny bite of pasta.

"They don't want to get sued if one of us goes anorexic or something, I guess," I said, and she made a face.

"Don't have to worry about that," she said, then ate another bite. Fang groaned as the Food Hawk started toward him menacingly and picked up a fork.

"I'm not even hungry," he said sullenly, looking comical as he chewed on a piece of something green that was partially sticking out of his m_o_uth.

I stifled my giggles as he took the rest of it into his mouth. "You think any of us are?" I looked around for effect and noticed that everyone was eating unwillingly, some even looking like they were gonna upchuck any moment.

"If they had chicken nuggets-"

"Nikki."

"Sorry." I shook my head at the blue haired girl in front of me and looked down at my plate of food once more, feeling bile rise in my throat at the thought of what was happening later. I quickly grabbed a fork and stabbed something before putting it on my mouth without looking when the Food Hawk looked at me curiously. I put my fork back down when she wasn't looking and took a sip of my water, looking at the clock.

I almost spat said water all over Fang as I took in the time. We had only a couple of minutes until the first performance started. Where the hell had all the time gone? I saw Fang notice my eyes bugging in the direction of the clock as he too turned, then making a startled kind of noise as he saw how little time we had left.

"I know." I said to the back of Fang's head, and he turned back to me with wide eyes.

"That time went so quickly," he deadpanned.

"What ti-" Nikki began to speak around a piece of pasta, but was cut off by the ITAC official who had suddenly appeared in the middle of the dining room.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?" His loud, booming voice cut over all the nervous conversation going on and silence fell immediately. "Thank you. The dancer's performance and judging will start in ten minutes, could the dancers please follow me to the stage? The rest of you, please report to the auditorium." With that he left the dining room straight away, leaving us dancers scrambling to catch him up. We followed him all the way to the dressing rooms, where he told us, and I quote. "Five minutes to change, five minutes to set up. Get onstage or it's over."

No pressure.

We didn't have time for the girls to get changed somewhere away from the guys; we all made do and didn't look as we scrambled to change into our respective outfits. At least, I didn't look. Then I blushed inwardly at the thought of Fang and what—oh, screw that! I couldn't be thinking about anything like that at a time like this! I threw my clothes behind me onto the growing pile, not caring that it would take me half a lifetime to find them in this mess.

"Okay, come on!" I shouted, already running out of the door. I could see Nikki stumbling out after everyone else, Milan helping her to pull some sort of top over her head as she ran. I would have laughed if I didn't have ten seconds to get on stage. Behind us, Fang and Toby ran the chorus lifts down the hall, Toby shouting "INCOMING!" at the top of his voice. They were transferred through the heavy black doors of the stage and then out onto the stage itself, where all of us hurried to set them up. We succeeded. Barely.

I took my place, front and center, hearing everyone else pour in after me. I had about two seconds to catch my breath before the half-lights came up and I saw a panel of about seven people sat at a black table, looked at us critically with pieces of paper and pencils before them.

We didn't sparkle yet. That's the whole point of the half-lights. So that nothing onstage is really revealed until it needs to be. We probably just looked odd.

Fang nudged my shoulder. My blood went a little wonky.

Nerves. Obviously.

"Hello, and welcome to your first performance here at the International Talent Agency Competition," the woman sat in the middle said, ice blue eyes sweeping over each of us critically. "For a variety of reasons, each performance is recorded, and at the beginning of each you must face forwards and clearly tell your name. Once you have all done this, you will have approximately thirty seconds to prepare before you begin performing." The woman sat in the middle said, ice blue eyes sweeping over each of us critically. "Begin."

I heard the click of a camera and decided to start it rolling, stepping forward briefly to speak loudly and clearly, trying to ensure my nervousness didn't leak out into my voice.

"Maximum Ride."

I heard titters and whispers from some of the music and drama competitors in the audience. I ignored them. My name, as you may have noticed, is a subject of amusement among many.

Fang lifted his chin next to me, and his hair fell back. "Fang Dawson," he said, his voice echoing in the silent room.

The whole modern and jazz row told their names first, followed shortly by the hip hop, and then the ballet dancers.

"Thank you," the icy-eyed woman said, and the curtain closed, the lights fading.

Milan and Layne had gone to give the tech cues, and I hoped to God they hadn't messed anything up. Ohmygod. What if they had put in the wrong music? What if we were going to end up dancing to Justin Bieber? What if we messed up? What if we were so bad the judges died? What if—

"Max, you're hyperventilating slightly," muttered Fang, putting a hand tentatively on my back in the dark. "Chill out. Good luck." Then he took his hand away.

We were ready.

Two minutes elapsed maddeningly slowly. Nikki whispered _"Ten seconds," _and I could hear the ballerinas staying still while everyone else getting in the starting poses. They would use the first eight counts to lift their leg into the turn, and then the next three to turn. The chorus lifts creaked just the tiniest bit. My skin was going to crawl off my body if the music didn't start soon.

Then, hey look, it did.

The curtains opened, and everything was velvety blackness, the house lights down. I could see the green blink of a camera in the back, but I was sure to stay still.

The first piano notes played, and I could see in my mind's eye; Layne putting her leg up gracefully, straight into one of the male dancer's hands, a boy named Michael, head tilting back. Three more eight counts where they would be softly turning. The lights were only on them at this point, and dimly. You wouldn't be able to see us.

Except, of course, when the two guitar notes sounded, and bright lights flashed first on stage right, then stage left, illuminating us, still frozen, in all our shining glory. And I mean that literally, since, you know, the pants. Then back to lighting the ballerinas. Another eight-count of spinning, and two more guitar notes. This time it went from stage left to stage right. The bottom two rows stayed still.

A tiny fast part, which the ballerinas would use to put their legs down agonizingly slowly. Then the lights came up on us, as the beat changed. And we _sparkled. _The light from the spotlights was blinding my eyes, and I couldn't see the audience anymore, which frankly just took the nerves out of everything.

We started moving all together, slowly, like we were in peanut butter. Tipping and rocking slightly, all the moves big and passionate, but without speed. I hit every one of the moves for the four eight counts we had.

When the electric guitar faded, so did the lights. The crazy part was next, and I breathed in the dark for the split second I had.

The explosion of lights and sound came at the same time, and well, I don't really remember too much after that. I remember missing a turn that I was supposed to do, but I think I covered it all right. I remember Daisy totally losing it at one point, not managing to jump back in for several seconds. I remember Toby giving me a tiny grin as we spun together for one of the partnering routines.

Other than that, like I said. Not much.

Oh, I remember that Fang and I landed my lift flawlessly. And it felt damn good, let me tell you, to get that right, especially since my backflip was a little too overbalanced for my tastes.

And I definitely recall the applause that came from the music and drama students and the judges as the lights faded out and Fang set me gently down next to him. I couldn't resist—I blame that I was high off adrenaline—and I threw my arms around him. Of course, I then saw over his shoulder that everybody was hugging everyone else, so it didn't feel quite so awkward.

Before I let go of him and was violently hugged by Nikki, I observed vaguely that he smelled good. But I didn't have time to dwell on it before I was being squeezed to within an inch of my life by said British girl, who I noted was for some strange reason crying.

"Why're you crying, you noob?" I half-yelled, looking at her smudged eyeliner.

"I didn't go wrong!" she trilled, jumping and sobbing and smiling all at the same time.

"Trust you to cry for that!" I muttered, and she merely grinned once more before bouncing off to hug Milan; for quite a long time, I noticed. I gave everyone else high-fives or quick hugs and returned to Fangs side as we all migrated to the front of the stage with no prompting, tension rising as we remembered five of us were about to leave.

"Firstly, I would like to say well done to you all. The first performance is always the hardest, and I think you all did exceptionally well." The woman in the middle spoke again, her eyes looking a little less sharp, a little less intimidating now it was almost over. "Please wait for five minutes as the judges confer."

So. Not. Cool. We were forced to just stand there while the _psstpsstpsst _sounds of the judges whispering to each other washed over us tantalizingly.

"As you all know," the woman spoke up. Immediately, we were all at attention, "there are not enough places in the next round for all of you. Five of you must leave."

A horrible, thick atmosphere descended in the hall. I felt my heartbeat speed up tenfold and my palms become sweaty. Fang must have noticed because he reached down and grabbed my hand. I didn't even think about anything romantic; just reassured that his hands were as clammy as mine.

"I don't wish to draw this out for you in any way, so I shall say it quickly. We have decided." The woman said, and my breathing caught. "The five dancers leaving the competition today are as follows. Daisy Fellowman, Shawna Guilliat, Gillian Smith, Taylor Browska and Bree Tipper.

I heard soft crying erupt instantaneously from those five mentioned, even from Taylor, the only guy mentioned. They somehow ended up in the center of a mass hug of all the dancers, all of us whispering and muttering _You guys were amazing, really, honestly, it'll be okay, promise_ and even I might have shed a little tiny tear. Maybe, possibly.

But mainly I was trying not to jump for joy; I was through!

Happy, Nikki, Fang, and I headed off of the stage to grab some seats in the auditorium to watch the rest of the students perform. Drama would go next, and then music.

But the worst part was over—our performance. Thank God for that, huh?

* * *

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,**

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,**

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY (FOR WEDNESDAY) DEAR FEX,**

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!**

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOR WEDNESDAY FEX, I LOVE YOU AND YOU'RE AMAZING ****MY BEAUTIFUL AND SEXY WIFEY :DDDD**

**Yes. It is indeed FangIsFexcellent's birthday on Wednesday, but we've uploaded today instead. So, wouldn't you just love to say happy birthday in a review for her? Again, we're so sorry for the delay. We hope you enjoyed this though **


	11. Chapter 11

**Blacks : HEY PEOPLES! Yes. My username has now been changed (cookies to anyone who reviews saying what pigfarts is!), but I will still be called Blacks, as this is now an actual nickname of mine :L *looks pointedly at Fex***

**Fex: :D Oh, and OHMIGOD, thank you all SO much for the birthday wishes :L Blacks didn't exactly TELL me that she was posting a note, but whatever. :P Oh, right, citations and stuff. I do not own Inception, as much as I wish I did.**

**Why is this disclaimer necessary? Because the music group is performing Dream Is Collapsing, from the Inception soundtrack. Just take out the spaces and listen to the original here: http:/ www. youtube. com /watch?v=UkvNmb9tMII**

Blacks : OKAY, this has been edited a tiny bit since it's first upload. Sorry! Details at the bottom. *feels guilty for some reason*

* * *

I settled myself in one of the plush seats, in between Fang and Nikki. I could hear murmured conversation break out all around the auditorium, mostly nervous-sounding; obviously from those who were still to perform. I couldn't help but feel pleased we had gone first; we didn't have to go through the torture of watching others do better than us. Not that they would, of course.

Riiight.

I turned to Fang to mention this when a hush descended upon the room once more as the woman from before stood up, turning to face us with a stern look.

"Drama competitors, please leave the auditorium and go backstage to prepare. As with the dancers, you will have five minutes before curtain." The drama people all stood up at this, each with worried expressions and a few looking a little queasy. I tried to smile encouragingly at one who was walking along the row in front of me, but she was looking so ill I don't think she noticed. As soon as they left the room, quiet whispers broke out once more.

"...I wonder what they'll do?" I heard Nikki ask Milan from next to me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see her curled up in her chair, blue hair standing out from her dark-ish clothes. He said something along the lines of 'well, we'll find out in a few minutes!' and rolled his eyes. I caught Savannah's eye; she was a few rows down from the four of us and shook my head slightly, she grinned, but I saw as it wavered ever so slightly. She was clearly feeling the nerves too. I gave her a smile (I know...I'm smiling so much today!) and turned back to Fang, who was slouched in his chair and staring at the stage with a disinterested look.

"Bored? You look it," I teased, poking him in the shoulder. He glanced at me.

"I'm just trying to keep my cool exterior. Believe me, on the inside I'm screaming like a five year old girl with her first dolly." He said this so nonchalantly that I started laughing, trying to quiet down so as to keep the low volume level in the massive room. The image in my head of Fang doing exactly that wasn't helping either. He gave me a funny look, which only made me laugh harder. He actually cracked a smile, though I wasn't surprised. According to Dylan, I looked like a rabid koala when I laughed. That charmer.

I was about to say just how interesting it would be to see Fang jumping about like a five year old girl, but I was interrupted by the sound of heavy things being pulled onto the stage in front of us, and everyone quieted in preparation. The lights also changed from a blackout to a half-light, with a slightly blue glow. I could see some of them moving box type shapes in a line to the front of the stage, and a bunch of people doing something similar towards the back. I didn't have much time to ponder this however, as only a few moments later all of the actors headed toward the front of the stage and took their positions.

The woman that spoke to us gave the same speech to these guys, telling them that they would have to each say their names and it would be recorded, yada yada yada. The first thing I noticed about them were their outfits. One girl was dressed in a little girl type dress, pink and frilly bits, complete with pigtails and white shoes. I saw another dressed in what looked to be rags, with dirty-looking makeup. Just seeing these instantly made me excited to see what they'd prepared, and I settled down in my seat to see it better and more comfortably.

I only had to wait the few minutes it took for them all to say their names into the camera, and then get into position ready for their performance. I could hear a few hushed whispers from behind me as the lights went up, and I felt myself tense with anticipation of what was to come.

The lights first came up towards the back of the stage, quite high up, where about seven people were stood. It looked a bit like a playground scene, with the girl I had noticed before playing with a boy dressed as though the same age. One thing was strange about the scene, though—there were no words. At all. Complete silence.

This scene seemed to show how they became friends at this age, with the others playing in the background.

All of a sudden, the lights cut out again and came on a level lower and closer, this time a scene that I assumed to be a party, with a boy and girl in the center. Again, there were no words. I could tell that these characters were the same ones from the scene before, and I got from body language that she had "liked" him for a while, and they were only just realizing their feelings for one another. The girl rubbed an arm and looked away from the guy, who put a hand gently on her shoulder. The girl, surprised, looked up, only to find his head inches from her. His other hand came up and gently pulled her into a kiss, which was both sweet and awkward to watch.

The next scene, yet again a level lower and closer (I was going on the assumption that we had all been given the topic of stairs) showed these two people married with a kid, looking pretty happy. Even though they were played by different people, I found it pretty easy to tell who it was by the way they acted, which just enforced the knowledge that I was terrible at acting.

Another stair-step downward, and this time it was just the next person playing the girl, hugging one arm around her waist and mouthing silently into a phone cradled in the other. The pain she was feeling was palpable, and at the end of this short scene the girl was slightly bent over, crying without a sound.

The following part was worse, with a massive fight between her and her husband, with him storming out and other various bad things that just were terrible to watch. Even though it was still silent, the bad energy was crazy, leaking from everything that the two new players did.

Then the lights went down and came up one more time, and I saw the woman in drags lying on the front of the stage, looking straight at the audience, a hopeless expression on her face that was almost heartbreaking. I admit I looked over to Fang at this point in the hopes of seeing a tear. No such luck, I'm afraid. .

It finished with a massive round of applause from everyone in the auditorium, and I swear I saw a few people crying at that last scene. Everyone up on the stage ran down and hugged, much like we all had once we'd finished. Makeup got smudged obviously.

The judges began to deliberate, heads pushed close together.

When they announced the names of who would be going home, it wasn't much of a surprise. There was obviously people who were insanely better than others here. The judges called out the girl from the last scene by name, but not to eliminate her—no, they actually praised her and her exclusively. She was going to be trouble for all those other theater shmucks. I would be surprised if she didn't go all the way. I made a mental note to be friends with her.

But the drama part was now over, and I watched as Savannah turned a very light shade of green in the seconds leading up to the woman telling the music department to move it or lose it. Okay, so that's not exactly what she said. But in any case, Savannah flipped her hat onto her head and made her way to the door leading to backstage. The musicians and drama people were given more time to set up, seeing as they had to roll in blocks and sets and chairs and instruments. The blue half-light came on again, and chatter rose, most voices with the undertones of awe, talking about the performance we had just seen.

"Wow," was Fang's word.

"Holy shit," was Milan's.

"That was awesome," said Nikki, turning around to look at me, raising her eyebrows.

I nodded, and idly watched as Savannah pushed in a baby grand piano on a wheeled platform. Turned out she was the only piano player they accepted. Go figure. She must be amazing, then.

She went offstage and then came back on with a simple bench to sit on, positioning it, sitting down, adjusting it, putting her feet on the pedals, then taking them off and going to stand center stage. As I watched, all of the competitors set up their instruments and placed sheet music on the music stands they had carted in, then came to join her, all in one straight line across the stage. They were all in matching outfits, white button-downs and black pants, though their shoes mismatched and Savannah was the only one wearing a hat.

They were asked to say their names, and they did so. When told they could begin, though, they remained exactly where they were.

We all stared at them, wondering why they weren't going back to play, when they all spoke at the same time.

"You're waiting for a train," they all said at once, a chorus of deadpan voices. "A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter. Why doesn't it matter? Because we'll be together."

And only then to do they go and sit in their seats. Ten seconds later, they start.

Savannah's actually one of the ones to start out, the piano and two violins playing simple-sounding note progressions, accompanied by an electric guitar, wielded by this guy with the weirdest haircut I'd ever seen.

It was kind of boring, actually.

Then three more violins came in, and then more string instruments, until an incredible wall of sound was crashing over the audience. It was...well, amazing.

Oh, right, this was the ITAC. We were all supposed to be amazing.

Well, they were still amazing. Savannah lost her solo stardom as the song went on, but there were a few measures she got it back. I noticed that she wasn't using sheet music. She had her part memorized.

It was mesmerizing. It built into an incredible crescendo and ended way too soon for my liking. There was a repeat of what happened at the end of the drama performance, hugging and deliberating and whatnot.

"Your friend was pretty good," Fang commented. "Though I don't know about that guy at the back..." He trailed off as it went silent once more. I turned to the front properly this time, noticing a weedy looking kid at the back who looked nervous as hell. I didn't see him go wrong specifically, but he didn't exactly look confident...

I felt my heart leap into my mouth when the names were being announced; I really didn't like to think of Savannah leaving. I knew she wouldn't, but still. Nerves, people, nerves! I let out a sigh of relief when her name wasn't called. I did feel sorry for the boy at the back though...the second his name was called out his face kind of crumpled. But I stopped caring about him (I know, I'm so kind.) as my roommate ran off of the stage and towards me and Nikki.

I admit it, I squealed. Just a little. But it kind of slipped out what with my happiness and such and as we hugged and jumped around a bit. So shoot me. I gave Fang a death glare and an abridged version of the finger when he smirked at me.

"Oh, whatever, emo boy. Just because I actually show my emotions." Ha. I laughed at his fake sad expression, bottom lip in pout mode. I was about to turn back and continue our girly-screaming-jumping session, but I was cut off by someone a different woman standing up from the main table. I think she must have had a microphone clipped to her somewhere, because last time I checked it was impossible for anyone's voice to be that loud.

"Please can all eliminated contestants follow me to sort out any travel arrangements needed. Everyone else, congratulations on getting through to the next round!" A small cheer went up. "As a reward for all your hard work, the curfew has been extended tonight only until midnight. You must all have returned to your rooms by this time, and lights will be out ten minutes later. Please remember the rules mentioned to you on your arrival, we wouldn't want any of you eliminated over something as mundane as a bit of alcohol."

There was silence for a few moments as she and the fifteen eliminated contestants left the room, followed by the other people who were sat at the panel. There were a few second where it seemed no-one moved. Then –

"PARTY IN THE GIRLS DORM!" Nikki screeched, clambering over the seats in front of her and skipping to the door, a stream of fellow contestants following her. In each dorm there was a lounge type room, complete with a few couches and a TV. I assumed that was where she was headed, rolled my eyes and grabbed the arms of both Fang and Savannah.

"Come on guys, if we let her go her own someone will die." I said, and Savannah laughed, nodding her head.

* * *

The party wasn't very exciting until after dinner—energized, we got loads of snacks from the kitchen (which, helpfully, was giving them out), then headed back, this time to the boys' dorm to continue our festivities.

This time, someone dredged up a karaoke machine.

How.

The music students cheered, and the rest of us were apprehensive.

"You gonna sing?" I asked Fang, nudging him on the arm. He gave a _hell-to-the-no _glare and stalked off to get a soda.

"GET ME ONE!" I called after him, then went to find Savannah, who was standing over where the machine was being set up, twirling her hat in her hands.

"Nice playing today," I told her, and she gave a smile.

"Thanks. Nice dancing." She shot back a compliment with a compliment. "Oh, and nice pants."

"Oh, yes," I said grandly. "They were wonderful, weren't they."

"Whoever designed them should be shot."

"But they looked good onstage, no?"

"Very true," Savannah acknowledged. She waved a hand at the machine being plugged in. "You sing at all?"

I waggled a hand in the universal "maybe yes, maybe no" gesture. "Eh. I can, that's not to say I'm good."

"You should sing something," she said. "I'm going to. Most of the music and theater department are going to. Come on. Convince Fang to sing with you?"

"He won't," I said flatly. "There is no way in hell I can possible convince him."

"So go with me," Savannah said with a winning smile. "C'moooon..."

"I pick the song," I said.

"Yay!" Savannah gave me a quick hug and then rushed off, hair streaming out behind her. "Hi!" I heard her call to someone I couldn't see, and Nikki caught up to me.

"Hell-ooo," she said. "Going to sing?"

"I think so, with Savannah," I said. "On the condition that I pick the song."

"Good choice, I heard her listening to some sort of Italian screamo on her iPod earlier. Though I don't think they have that on karaoke."

"Let's hope not."

"Yes."

The machine kicked up, and a guy in tight pants from theater took the floor. He oozed confidence as he made his selection. The music started, and a miniature mosh pit formed, watching him.

"Want some food?" Nikki shouted over the trumpets coming out of the speakers.

"Yeah," I yelled back, and we managed to fight our way through the crowds to the makeshift food table. An array of chips and dips and various other good things were spread out on it. Nikki and I both got plates. I saw Fang standing over near a wall with his own plate. We made our way over to him as the guy kept singing. _Hey little girl on a spending spree, I don't come cheap but the kisses come free! _

"What's up?" Nikki asked, trying to use his shoulder as an armrest, despite being too short to have it work.

"Nothing," Fang said.

"Sure you don't want to s—"

"No."

I laughed. Fang did not. In fact, he seemed kinda mad. "You okay, Fangy?"

"Don't call me that," he muttered. "I hate parties. Too loud."

Nikki rolled her eyes, and I couldn't believe it. Hating parties was just wrong. "Come on, Fangy." I pulled on his arm. "Just talk to someone. Crack a smile. Eat, drink soda, dance, whatever. Go find some hot theater chick." Okay, so that just slipped out. And I totally didn't mean it. Oops. In any case, Fang gave me a look like I was crazy, then went off somewhere. Nikki shrugged at the loss of her armrest and then grabbed another soda.

The theater guy was still going. _Hey little girl, listen to my plea, I come with a lifetime guarantee. _He was actually really good, with the kind of fifties thing going on, swinging around like he was at some sort of sock hop. Savannah was standing over by the line to karaoke. It was another girl and then her, and when she saw me she waved me over, flipping her hat over in her hands and putting it on her head. She adjusted it with one finger and winked. I headed over.

"I hate you," I told her. She beamed and handed me a song catalogue.

"Here," I grumbled, pointing at my selection. One that was easy to sing. Savannah rolled her eyes, but gave it to the guy who was unofficially running the show. The girl from before finished up (she was mediocre, nothing good, nothing bad) and Savannah dragged me onstage, winking at the crowd. God, but she was happy about this.

"I don't want to," I said into the microphone, and everyone laughed.

"GO, MAX!" Nikki called. "WHOO-HOO!"

A bunch of other people took up the call, and I couldn't help but feel happy about it. "I hate you," I muttered to Savannah again, and she grinned as the music started. _Want me to go first? _she mouthed, and I nodded fervently. She rolled her eyes, smiled again, and put the microphone up to her lips.

She was good. Like, whoa good. Of course, she then gave me a cue to sing and I tripped up and failed.

No one laughed, though. In fact, they clapped crazily when we were done. Savannah blew kisses and then dragged me off. Okay, so I was looking for Fang. Seeing if he had seen me fail. And if he had laughed.

I found him.

Against a wall.

Talking to a pretty girl I recognized from the theater department.

You literal bastard, I thought, though of course I didn't _really _care. Psh. What are you talking about?

Savannah saw where I was staring. "You sneaky bitch," she said. "You so like him."

"Do not," I said, coloring.

"Whateeeverrrr," she sang, then skipped off to practically jump on a guy from her department, who gave her a soda and a high-five.

"Good job!" Nikki squealed, tackle-hugging me.

"Ahaha, no," I said lamely, still a bit off. But screw it, I might as well have fun.

I ignored my slight hurt feelings and went off to talk to Toby, ignoring the curious look I saw Nikki cast my way. I started talking to Toby about our dance earlier on when she skipped up to us.

"Duuuuuuuuuuude. I saw you making cow eyes at Fang earlier. And how you went completely _green_ with envy when you saw him talking to that slut over there." She said, bouncing up and down whilst looking at me with a serious expression.

"Slut?" Toby questioned. Nikki rolled her eyes.

"Boys." She sighed. " Honestly, have you seen how short that bloody skirt is? If it gets any higher, she'll have four lips to gloss in the morning." She tutted. I tried not to gag at the image. "Anyway. I saw how you face like, fell. Should I go talk to him? I could go talk to hi-" She started to walk off in his direction when I grabbed her arm, jerking her towards me.

"You will do no such thing, nugget girl." I said in her ear.

"You DO like him!" She exclaimed, grinning widely. I was struggling to see how she had come to that conclusion from what I'd said. "I gotta go tell Savannah!" She wriggled out of my grasp and skipped over to said American, who was stood talking to one of her music people, coke in hand.

"So. You like Fang?" Toby asked in his German accent, looking at me with a smirk on his face and one eyebrow raised.

"Oh shut up." I joked, laughing. I looked over to where my roommates were stood, giggling and bouncing and clearly plotting. I laughed again; they looked so overly excited.

And then I saw Fang talking to that girl again, and my temporary good mood disappeared.

* * *

**Hey! I just watched inception ... OMFG SO COOL! Seriously, it is incredible. Fex was bugging me, so I watched it.**

**STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING. WATCH IT. NOW.**

**Hmn ... what did you think of this chapter? Max's sudden feelings towards Fang? Got an opinion? Tell us! Also, anyone who knows what pigfarts is (as afore mentioned) will get a cookie ****until next time! **

****EDIT* Okay. Sorry about the mistakes guys. I've changed one or two, and I typed Iggy instead of Dylan at one point. Sorry! –Blacks***


	12. Chapter 12

**Fex: *flails* I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! THIS TIME IT'S MY FAULT! ...yeah, I've had like eighteen thousand things to do this week and such. :) anyway, here's the next chapter. Oh, and Emma? Yes, you, anonymous reviewer. Hufflepuffs are particularly good finders. **

**Blacks: OMFGOMFGOMFGOMFGOMFG. DO YOU REALISE WE HAVE HAD 49 REVIEWS ON THAT LAST CHAPTER? DO YOU? DO YOU?**

**Fex: OMFGYES. Really, y'all? YOU ROCK LIKE WHOA. **

**Blacks: To say I was happy was an understatement. Oh. And you guys should love me. I'm avoiding my VERY IMPORTANT HOMEWORK (note the use of capitals) to write this.**

**Fex: And I...was just lazy :L OH RIGHT DISCLAIMERS. **

**We don't own Maximum Ride. We don't own the song "Possibility" by Lykke Li. We also don't own "Nuvole Bianche," or in fact anything written by Ludovico Einaudi, or whatever the hell Nikki's using (I'm not even sure at this point what it is—Blacks picked it).**

**

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**

I dashed back up to the dorm long enough to do the Kool-Aid shots with the gang, who were ecstatic but not surprised that I didn't get kicked off. Dylan asked about the other stuff, and I told them how awesome the theater and music departments had been. Iggy asked if there were any hot girls there, for the thousandth time, and I tried not to think about Fang and a certain not-so-hot-to-me-but-maybe-to-him drama girl.

When I got back, Nikki threw herself on me. "Where'd you go?" she asked.

I held up my shot glass, which I was still holding. "Kool-Aid."

"Oh."

"What's that?" a British boy asked.

"A drink."

"Alcoholic?"

"No."

"Oh."

Layne came up behind me. "Look who's singing," she giggled. I looked over the heads of all the people to see Toby singing something from High School Musical in a very...interesting manner.

"He's so odd," Nikki said.

"He is," Layne agreed. "So, have you guys picked a song for solos yet? You know, we start choreographing tomorrow." I realized that no, I hadn't even thought about it. Oops. "I'm doing Howl, by Florence and the Machine."

"Never heard of it," Nikki said, and I was just as clueless, but Savannah had overheard and gave Layne a high-five.

"Ooh, I love them," she said.

"Same!" Layne flipped her hair behind her ear and started talking in earnest. Turns out the American and the ballet girl like the same weird music. Go figure.

Nikki looked distressed. "I swear, I haven't thought about a song at all," she said. "You?"

"No." At least I wasn't the only one. "When we get back up to rooms, we'll scour our iPods. Agreed?" She sighed and nodded. "Savannah, what are you doing?"

"There's this piano piece I found that I like, by an Italian guy," she said, adjusting her hat. "Nuvole Bianche. Ever heard of—no, you haven't. Anyway, it's pretty. I thought I might try it. I'll show it to you when we get back up to the room?" I nodded.

The party broke up only when an ITAC person came to do so, herding us all back to our dorms. Savannah got yelled at when she went back to get her hat, which she had left near the speakers, but she caught up with us soon enough and we all scurried back up to our room, like good little children. It was late, but Nikki and I grabbed our iPods and held an emergency conference on my bunk.

Savannah put on her classical piece of classicalness, and it was awesomely pretty. Her fingers tapped out rhythms while she listened on her single bed, playing invisible keys against her thighs. Of course, then we couldn't look at her, because we were too immersed in finding things to dance to.

I looked through my playlist for the troupe's set lists, but I couldn't do any of the sets by myself, and I wouldn't be able to just throw out the moves for the song and start over. So that was out. Next to me, I could see Nikki go straight to a playlist labeled "Hip-Hop and Other Assorted." That's all well and good for her, but what about me? I don't have one set style.

So without any better ideas to narrow it down, I just went straight to "Artists" and started looking.

"Found one," I said ten minutes later.

"What is it?" Savannah and Nikki asked at the same time.

I showed them.

"Lykke Li? That's kind of emo, don't you think?" Nikki asked.

"Eh." I waved a hand. "'Possibility' has a cool theme, and not too many lyrics. I don't like dancing to lyrics."

"I do," Nikki said. "But I _still. Can't. Find. Anything."_

"Calm down. You'll do yourself an injury," Savannah said, lying on her bed and staring into space.

"But I _need_ a song for tomorrow!" she whined, going over to her suitcase.

"I'm sure inspiration will strike you at some point," I said, jumping down off my bed and getting my robe before making my way to the bathroom. "Sleep on it." I closed the door on her distraught face.

**

* * *

**

I was woken up at seven by Nikki falling out of bed with a loud _thud_. I bolted upright and looked to the floor to see if she was, like, dead or bleeding, but only saw her look around dazedly before casually standing up and heading to the bathroom. I leant over the bed to peer down at Savannah.

"Are you as tired as I am?" I asked, feeling the blood rush to my head.

"Probably more so. Nikki woke me up at three AM screaming. Cut through my music," She yawned pointedly, looking at the iPod laying on her lap also. She'd obviously been listening to it all night.

"...why?" I asked. My head was really starting to hurt.

"She found her song." She yawned again.

"At three in the morning?"

"Yep. I can't remember much, but she said something about a dream. And then something about a river? And a llama."

"I won't ask."

"No. Be happy she isn't half dead with stress anymore."

"Oh yes." I swung back over the wooden bars and lay down on my bed again, wincing when a stream of light went in my eye. I pushed myself a little further up the bed to yank the curtains shut when I caught a glimpse of the weather. Rainy.

"Uuuuuugh," I groaned. "It's raining."

"Welcome to England. You haven't spent all seventeen years of your life here," Nikki said, emerging from the bathroom looking slightly more alive.

"But its _summer_," I moaned, looking at her in despair.

"But its _England_," she mimicked me, sifting through her clothes. "It'll be better tomorrow, if the forecast is right. Which is almost never..." She trailed off, picking up a pair of shorts and holding them against her.

"Shorts? Are you mad, woman?" I heard Savannah ask from beneath me.

"For me, this is average weather, dear. Any we're inside anyway. If we were outside, I'd be in jeans," she said, picking out some red thing. I didn't bother asking what it was.

"I'd be in a parka. And a hat. And scarf. And thermals," I muttered. I liked it hot. Nikki must have heard me, because she rolled her eyes, grabbing her clothes and whatever else she needed and darting back into the bathroom.

"Don't take all day!" I shouted. "Some of us would actually like to use that bathroom!" I heard muffled laughter in response. "Bitch!" I called, only to hear something much worse shouted back.

"...I take offense." I said to Savannah. She chuckled.

"Yes. Anyway, I'm going to pick some clothes," she said, standing up and heading to her chest of drawers. I rolled my eyes and lay back down on the bed. I had plenty of time.

**

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**

Yeah. So I might have made us all a tiny bit late for breakfast. But hey, I'm used to the walk of shame. Fang raised an eyebrow when I sat down late, and I gave an apologetic smile. I felt a twinge of triumph when I realized that the theater girl was nowhere to be found, but then sour again when she sat down on his other side, with a plate of food. But of course I didn't care, so I sat down across from him. "What song are you using?" I asked him.

"It's a secret."

"Of course it is," I sighed. "Katy Perry, right?"

He grinned. Fang _grinned. _"You got it, Maxine."

I swear he exists to annoy me.

"Hi," said the girl from theatre. "I'm Maya."

"Hi," I said back.

"You're Max, right?"

_None of your business. _"Yep."

"In dance?"

_Obviously. _"Yep." I took a bite of toast to signify I was done talking.

Breakfast was over quickly, we met briefly in the auditorium, and then were sent off to our various practice rooms to do what we had to do. We had three days to figure this out—two and a half, really, since after lunch on the third day we would be judged.

Gulp.

I had my laptop in the bag and my headphones in my ears—this was the way I always did sets. I would plug in the music on repeat and turn it up almost all the way, playing it over and over until I knew it by heart, letting myself get ideas and things before I actually started choreographing. The song Possibility wasn't even that long, really, but it was slow. I wanted dramatic.

As every dancer knows, sometimes less is more. Packing tens of thousands of movements into a five-minute song usually isn't the best idea, but at the same time, putting just a few in can be boring. Repetition has to be used with care, or else people will be like "Hey, when's something new coming up?"

I felt like I should do a little bit of repetition at the beginning. I ran through all the moves that I had ever done, or seen done, or just made up out of thin air, smiled, and got up from where I had been sitting.

Then laid straight back down again on my side. I knew what I was going for—loneliness. Pretty easy theme. But I wanted it to be better than it sounded—I wanted to surprise everyone with what I was going to do.

So I just started moving.

A straight two hours later, I took a water break, came back, and looked around at what everyone else was doing. Nikki seemed to be doing okay, practicing a little sequence of eight over and over again. She gave me a tiny wave, and then her face fell back into intense concentration. Layne had her pointe shoes on, twirling with an incredible amount of grace. Fang was sitting on the ground, twitching. That was about it for him. Weirdo. I wondered briefly if he was just sat there relaxing, or choreographing his dance in his head. I went for the second one.

I went back to where I was practicing before and sat down on the floor, putting my earphones back in a familiarizing myself with the music once more. I was definitely getting some 'loneliness' vibes off of this, and a dance move just jumped into my head as I wondered how to portray this.

A few months ago, Iggy and I had come up with a dance for a set that was coming up. We never actually finished it, but whatever. We'd had a song kind of similar to this one in its theme, and when I started off I went straight into a move where I kind of curled in on myself, except elegantly. I immediately went back to the move I'd decided to start to dance with, me lying sideways on the floor with one of my legs swinging gracefully, skimming the floor. I used this momentum to curl my leg up to by chest and turn lightly on the small of my back, ending up sat on the floor facing the audience with my legs held to my chest, ankles crossed delicately.

I decided that I liked this move, and tried a variety of different techniques to get me smoothly standing; I wanted this to be elegant and graceful and all that other stuff I'm not usually like. I managed to nail down something that brought me to a standing position in a flurry of twirls and spins.

I continued to work at this, repeating and editing and tweaking until it was 100% perfect, because the beginning of a dance was the most important part, in my opinion. Then I collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily and watching as all my fellow dancing people were flagging too. Apart from Fang, who was still sat down, tapping his feet slightly with his eyes closed. I glanced up at the massive clock hung on the wall and noted with glee that we only had a few minutes until it was time to go.

Not one to waste time (ha ha) I closed my eyes and ran through what I had so far in my head, trying to imagine what it would look like from the front. Satisfied, I felt myself relaxing when someone started shouting that we had twenty minutes to clean up and basically do whatever the hell we wanted before we had to go down for dinner. I felt a hand grab my arm and flinched, ready to go into kick-ass mode, when I opened my eyes to see Nikki standing above me. Her blue hair was hanging limply, some stands stuck to her neck and she was panting slightly, her body shimmering a little with the sweat she had on.

"Back to the room?" I nodded. Then groaned at the thought of all those stairs I had to climb.

Nikki took a record-fast shower, and then so did I. Savannah was merely blistered, not sweaty. She showed me her pinkie fingers, which were both rubbed raw. "Octaves," she explained. Whatever that meant.

I'm sure we could have done more exciting things with our twenty free minutes, but Nikki and I sure felt better after no longer smelling like deodorant's failed attempt to cover up our copious amounts of perspiration. Savannah changed hats (how many did that girl own?) and we headed down to get food.

Part of me (a tiny part that I immediately dismissed as irrelevant to my current feelings) sort-of-not-really wished that the food would suck again.

Three guesses why, but of course I _had no feelings for Fang. _

It's just that the food at that restaurant was damn good, and I was craving it.

Anyway, the food wasn't great that night, but it didn't really suck. Maya sat with us at dinner, across from Fang. I sat down next to Savannah, who had Fang on her other side. I mostly talked to Nikki, Milan, and Toby, but about halfway through dinner, Savannah got up to get another Diet Coke (she drank them religiously) and Fang slid over to sit next to me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey." I ate another bite. "So it didn't seem like you got much done."

"I got a lot done, thanks very much." His voice was faux-affronted, and I couldn't help but crack a smile.

"Looked like you were on the floor twitching to me," I said.

"You obviously didn't see the notebook." And Fang pulled his black-covered notebook from a bag at his feet. "See?"

I opened it. From the first page, there were crazily drawn diagrams, looking like something between toddler art and Picasso. A few illegible words were scratched down, as though written in an extreme hurry. I tried to decipher them, but could only get a few letters.

"And this is why we shouldn't write while high," I said. Fang snorted and took the notebook back, flipping through pages idly. I caught three words, scratched out in bold and underline at least six times: I NEED PYROTECHNICS. "Pyrotechnics?"

"You'll see," Fang said.

"Is that legal?"

"No idea."

"Just as long as you don't kill me with them," Maya said from next to him. I spared her a look before turning back to Nikki and Milan.

"Thanks for stealing my seat, Fang," Savannah said, rolling her eyes as she got back with a silver can in her hand. "But it's okay, I was done anyway. Max, Nicks, you want to help me with my piano piece?"

I couldn't think of anything better to do, and hey, it would get me away from Fang and his "addition," so I shrugged and got up.

"Where are we going?" Nikki asked, as Savannah led us down one of the halls.

"Practice room," she said, and then opened a door to a small room that contained a grand piano and a couple of chairs. I don't even play piano and I admitted the thing was beautiful—its glossy lid raised to reveal much gold strings and red velvet. Savannah set her Diet Coke can on a piece of paper up next to the music stand and opened her folder, which was thick and obviously filled with pages and pages of sheet music. She tossed it at me when she found the one she wanted, and I looked through it as she was setting up the music stand.

She had everything in here from Beethoven to Miley Cyrus, anything that she obviously found appealing. I recognized some things, and others I had never heard of. Some of the sheet music had subtitles that stated that she had composed it herself.

"Okay, so this is it," Savannah said, startling me a bit when I remembered where I was. "It's gonna be a little rough, and it's in twelve-eight time with four flats in the key signature, but I'll try to do the best I can."

As if that meant anything to us. Nikki shrugged at me like _It's all Greek to me _and then Savannah started playing, so we faced back to her again.

It started out with just these little chords, her fingers holding down three or four white keys at a time. Eight of them. It was dull, I admit.

Then the tempo changed, and she held down a full chord with her left hand while her right hand tripped out a little melody that was awkwardly timed, but somehow gorgeous.

And she kept playing, layering rhythm after note after chord until both of her hands were flying around, over and under each other, up and down and up again before coming to a rest on those four chords again.

Cue dramatic silence.

"...wow," Nikki said, looking at the piano in awed astonishment.

"That was incredible, Savannah," I exclaimed, looking at her excitedly whist trying not to drop the overflowing folders I was still holding in my arms.

"Thanks. Think I'll get through?"

"If you don't get through, I'll eat my foot," Nikki said. I tried not to grimace at the terrible image that popped into my head at that.

"Um, thanks?" Savannah said, looking at Nikki uncertainly and glancing at me.

"You're welcome!" The other blue haired girl said, now examining the ceiling with interest. Savannah laughed.

"So, what are you guys dancing to?" she asked, pushing the bench to talk to us.

"Possibility. I told you." I said, grinning.

"Mockingbird. By Eminem." Nikki said, scratching her nose.

"Eminem? Really?" Savannah asked.

"Yeah. I had a dream about it," Savannah gave me a knowing look at this and rolled her eyes. "And then when I started to put dance moves in it, they just slotted into place. It's great!" She looked up at us, grinning.

"I'm sure, darling," Savannah said in a teasing tone. "Shall we go back to the room?"

I checked my watch. "It's only eight."

"I have ten things of Reeses in my case."

"I'm there."

"What are Reeses?" Nikki asked, looking confused.

"Poor little English girl." I shook my head. "Reeses are chocolate covered pieces of peanut butter-" I was cut off.

"...PEANUT BUTTER? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?"

**

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**

"These are soooo good." Nikki said around a mouthful of chocolatey peanut-ness. Well. I'm assuming that's what she said, because it sounded like "Thssogfgad."

"Clearly, you have never been to America," Savannah said, sat cross-legged with her back to her headboard. Once we had arrived at the room, we'd all made camp on Savannah's bed and brought any food we had stashed in our cases. Now a variety of Reeces, Hersheys and Jelly Tots (whatever the hell those were—they tasted good. You can assume that Nikki brought them) were laid out on Savannah's pale bedspread, and we were all stuffing our faces.

"Nope. Seriously, once this is all over, you have to send me massive boxes of these, guys. Like, every day," Nikki murmered.

I tried to ignore the twinge I felt at the thought of all of this being over, at the thought of me leaving the ITAC and going home. Sure, I missed my family and friends, but still...

"Okay. So long as you send me hot English guys," I replied, grinning back.

"Uh uh. You have Fang, my friend." Nikki grinned at me devilishly. I scowled at her.

"Milan," I retorted. She blushed.

"Oh whatever! It's not like I'll see him after this anyway." She looked kind of sad at the prospect. Me and Savannah noticed this, and jumped on it.

"You _loooooove _him!" we screeched, throwing any food we had in our hands at her as she covered her head to protect herself.

"Is that a catfight I detect?" came a cool, male voice from behind us. I gave a girly squeal and jumped slightly, a hand over my heart. _HolyshitFangwhat?No...that's not his voice... _I calmed down and narrowed my eyes as I saw Iggy's face filling the screen of my laptop, which I had forgotten I'd turned on.

"Oh shut up," I said, noting that he was the only one on call. "Where are the others?"

"They'll be on in a minute. I just called early to chat you your lovely roommates." He gave his pedophile-grin. Which looks startlingly realistic.

"Iggy!"

"You love me really, Maxi. Now. Who exactly is sitting on that bed?"

"Nikki." Said English girl spoke, still with a mouthful of food.

"And who might this other lovely lady be?" I wanted to gag at Iggy right now.

"Savannah." She gave a little wave.

"Well hello there. I am rather partial to your hair color." I sniggered at how poshly he was speaking. "Max. I wanna dye your hair that color when you get back."

"Over my dead body." I reached for some more chocolate.

"I can arrange that."

"I don't doubt it, Iggy." I grinned at him, noticing with glee that other little windows were beginning to load on the screen, and within a minute the whole gang was on call.

"So this is your dance troupe?" Nikki asked from my pillow.

"Yep. Hey, can you pass me the shot glass next to my pillow? And the little bag next to it." I pointed to where I had stashed my Kool-Aid packets. Nikki rummaged for a bit before throwing them to me. After taking the time to explain to her that no, these weren't alcoholic, and no, they weren't drugs, I managed to do my shots with the troupe before they had to sign off to go to a performance. I felt a pang of loss; they were going to sets and performances, things I would rather kill myself than miss, without me.

But I brushed the feelings aside as Nikki whipped out her Blackberry and began texting someone furiously.

"Who you texting?" Savannah asked, now half dangling off of the side of her bed, her head facing the opposite wall. She couldn't see, so I guessed she heard the insane tapping.

"Milan," she said, still concentrating greatly on her typing.

"Jeez, do you know how much that costs? He doesn't live here!" I exclaimed.

"Email. He has a phone like this too," she said. There was silence for a few moments.

"Sexting?" Savannah suggested, now sat up normally.

I laughed. Nikki's face was priceless.

"I...I take offense," she said, putting her phone down and reaching for another Reeses.

"So. What do we do now? I can't be bothered to tease Nikki about Milan anymore," Savannah said to me.

"You pick. I'm bored," Nikki said.

"Truths," she said.

"What?"

"It's like Truth or Dare, but with only Truth."

"You sound like a cliché in a horror movie," I told her, and she did a fake pout.

"I resent that. Please? We'll just do one each."

"Fine, but you go first."

"Nikki, ask me a Truth."

The British girl in question finished a mouthful of jelly beans and thought. "Why do you own so many hats?"

"I like them." Simple as that. "Okay, Max..." Oh, crap. "Do you hate Maya?"

That was an easy question. And I could get around it. "Not yet. But she's kind of annoying."

"Why?"

I grinned. "One question."

"Damn."

I asked Nikki something I already knew the answer too—if she liked Milan. She blushed and said that she did, but of course wouldn't take it anywhere since he apparently lived in South Africa and she lived...well, here.

We talked some, listened to bad music and answered emails from various friends. Iggy send me four of those ridiculous forwards telling me that I would die at ten-thirty by a knife-wielding little boy if I didn't keep them going. I promptly deleted all of them.

But, of course, we were exhausted. I don't even remember when I fell asleep.

**So. Hello, adoring fans. We love you. We also love your reviews. Last chapter, we got 49. Yes. 49. I think I would explode with happiness if we did that again. Think you can make an English girl explode with happiness? Here's your chance.**

**An American one too. :L **


	13. Chapter 13

**Blacks: OHEMGEE I AM SO SORRY! Yes, it's my entire fault that this update is so bloody late. But it's my Easter holidays and we've had friends from Holland over and every day we've been out doing stuff. And to those of you who noticed my blooper last chapter – well done! It was me and not Fex, I take the blame. Sorry guys!**

**Fex: Good thing, too. Another day and I was gonna commandeer the chapter. Also, DO YOU GUYS REALIZE WE (ALKJFWOEIJ) HAVE 300 REVIEWS NAO? **

**Blacks: Oh holy crap. It's so incredible! Y'know ... if we could hit another milestone, we may be persuaded to write a bit faster too ...**

**Fex: Oh, true. That would be pretty great :) **

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"Unsociable buggers."

"What?" I turned my head to face Nikki, who was currently staring at the drama competitors with a glare.

"Look at them! All they ever do is sit together. They don't _socialize_." She sighed.

"Well, with Max sitting over here, who would?" Savannah said, smiling at me sweetly.

"Shut up. I am wonderfully appealing."

"Keep telling yourself that."

I flipped Savannah off under the table, then ignored her put-on look of shock.

The three of us were currently sitting at a small table in the cafeteria, picking at our lunch and discussing what we'd been doing so far. I didn't actually know where Fang or any of the other guys were; last I saw, they'd been sat together in the hall looking over that notebook Fang had, so it was just us three girls.

"Anyway, Maya over there seems to want to get to know some of us," Savannah said. I looked around to see Maya looking around the room, clearly searching for Fang. I ignored the strange feeling that bubbled at the pit of my stomach at the thought.

I was about to open my mouth to tell my friends exactly what I thought of that particular drama student when Maya saw the three of us sat in a corner and gave a warm, obviously fake smile. I gave a big smile back, trying to convey my irritation through my eyes. I noticed how she glanced at the two sat either side of me, eyes lingering on Savannah for a few seconds before smiling again, giving a little wave and turning back to those she was sat with.

"She seems nice. I don't see why you have such a problem with her, Max," Nikki said, chewing on a chicken nugget thoughtfully.

"I don't have a problem with her!" I said defensively, and possibly a little bit too loud. I lowered my voice a little. "I have absolutely no issues with her. I don't even know why you're saying that." I shoved a forkful of salad into my mouth.

"Uh huh," she said, disbelieving.

"Come on, Max. I saw how jealous you got that the party. You think she's going after Fang," Savannah said nonchalantly, staring up at the ceiling and tapping something out on the table.

"I couldn't care less." I muttered shortly. They both just rolled their eyes in a creepy harmonized fashion. "Though she definitely _is _going after Fang."

Savannah burst out laughing. I stared at her, and she just shook her head in a _"No, I'm not going to tell you why" _fashion.

"Anyway. She's working on her piece with me and I need someone to help me get this thing I need. I reckon she's a good enough candidate to help me. Bye!" Within a few seconds Savannah had upped and gone, leaving me sitting there in disbelief as she walked up to _Maya_¸ spoke a few words and walked off with her like she wasn't a little-

"Oh look, there's Fang," Nikki said, pointing over to him with her fork. My head snapped up and I saw him shoveling a mountain of food onto his plate before grabbing a tray and a drink and scanning the room, probably looking for us. I gave a little wave and he saw, starting to weave through the tables towards us with Milan, the male ballet dancer and Toby behind him. The ballet dude introduced himself as Rémy (which I tried and failed to pronounce right – it ended up something like Remie) as they all sat down.

"Hey," Fang said as he slid into a stool with some sort of maneuver that shouldn't be possible. "Get work done today?"

"Yeah," I said. "Somewhat. I noticed you were actually on your feet today."

"Mmhmm," he said absently, digging into his giant plate of food. "Almost done."

"You still haven't told us what song you're doing," Milan remarked. "You always have those damn headphones in."

Fang gave a half-smile and I swear he knew exactly how devilish his eyes were turned up to.

Lunch was enjoyable, though I had blisters seriously all over my feet. I felt bad for someone like Layne, who was constantly spinning around on two of her toes. She seemed alright, though. Nikki was doing fantastically, even better than me. Mockingbird was a good song for her; she loved Eminem, though I wasn't crazy about them. She was happy, and that was good. An unhappy Nikki meant not very happy times for the rest of us.

Milan finished his food first. "You guys better be ready to go tomorrow. Almost done?"

"I am done," I said. Which I was. I was just trying to figure out this one ending sequence. I had two possible endings in mind; one strong, one weak. I wasn't sure which ending I wanted. Both would fit with the theme, but they would fit differently. I would figure it out today and then run it.

Savannah and Maya came back. Up to our table, to be precise.

"Hey, we were wondering if you guys had signed up for your solo time on the stage yet," Savannah asked, tucking a strand of hair that had fallen forward behind her ear. Her hat was gone. I made a mental note to tell her that she must have left it in the practice room.

"What's that?" Nikki asked, through a full mouth.

"We saw the sign-up sheet on the way back," Maya said. "We signed up. You get like ten minutes on the stage to work out tech cues and such. Most of the spots are gone...you should get them quick."

There was a scramble to sign up. I managed to get a spot right after Nikki and right before Fang, tomorrow at ten AM.

Back to the practice room, we decided to take a break and do some show and tell. Toby went first, and we watched as he did a rather hilarious interpretation of both Fred Astaire _and _Ginger Rogers to an old rock song that I later couldn't get out of my head. Nikki showed pieces of her dance, and Milan showed his African roots with his dreadlocks flying. At one point, I could hear Savannah banging out her piano piece down the hall. It sounded fabulous.

I showed mine as well, and got some feedback. Layne told me to be more graceful in the middle, and people voted on which end they liked better. As competitive as the ITAC was, everybody was super nice, to quote a Frank Zappa song that you've probably never heard. I was making friends here in England, and I almost felt like part of some awesome, big thing. It was wonderful.

Fang was the only one that wouldn't show what he had so far, no matter how much we all begged. He just smirked and said something about how it would be more effective if we saw it for the first time when he performed it properly. I huffed, determined to find out what he was doing.

The group of us dissipated as we all went back to our spots to practice some more. Nikki and I were relatively close to each other, so we walked to one edge of the room while the others all walked away in random directions. Nikki shrugged off her hoodie and chucked it on the floor, doing some quick stretches as to not let her muscles get cold.

"So how's it coming along?" Nikki asked, but I just smiled and put a finger to my lips. Ssh.

"Bloody hell, you and Fang are so secretive. You're well suited..." she mumbled, trailing off at my glare. I did _not_ like Fang. She rolled her eyes at me and put her headphones in, turning away from me to do a few moves.

I stood and took off my own hoodie (it really was hot in there), revealing the cream tank top I was wearing underneath. I rolled my shoulders a bit, doing a couple of stretches so I didn't pull a muscle. That would suck. I got into the last position I'd thought of, and tried to find a way to incorporate the ending I'd chosen. I'd decided to go for the softer ending, as my friends had said to. I would end up dancing at the same kind of pace I was beginning with, hopefully creating the right effect as it paired with the music.

I tried out some of my more graceful moves, involving spins and turns. I eventually managed to get from my standing pose to the crouched position of the next sequence of moves with a nifty little move involving a jump and a turn. I practiced this repeatedly until I had it down; the transition between sequences had always been tricky for me; I wanted to get on to them as soon as possible.

I continued at this, working through it and practicing the whole performance over and over. I worked out it lasted for about a minute less that the song, so I made a mental note to mix a new version on my laptop later that night. I silently thanked Iggy for installing that stupid software that used up a ton of memory space.

I glanced over to see what Nikki was doing only to find she wasn't there. Startled, I searched the room for her until I saw her standing with a few other dancers who had stopped practicing, talking to Milan with a smile on her face.

I grabbed my Converse and hoodie, tying the latter around my waist and knotting the laces of my shoes up so I could hang them around my neck, enjoying the feel of the cool floor on my feet. I maneuvered my way through the others dancing and walked past Nikki and Milan who were now sitting on the ground, still talking. I walked right up to Fang who was leaning against a wall, scribbling in his notepad. I noticed briefly that he didn't look worked at all; the rest of us were exhausted and sweaty. But I cast the thought aside as I jumped to his side, trying to get a glimpse of what he was writing.

I saw a scribbled around a stick figure, and a hastily scrawled word that looked like it said pyro- something before he snapped the notebook shut, looking down at me with smiling eyes.

"You're very nosy, you know?" I grinned.

"You love it. Now show me what you've written!" I said, trying to grab the notebook out of his hands. He held it out of my reach and tutted.

"You're gonna have to learn to be patient!" I growled at that, internally cursing my lack of height as I jumped and tried to swipe the notebook once more, but to no avail.

Fang wouldn't tell me anything. I gave up quickly, because I'd see it tomorrow anyway. I meant to leave and talk to Layne, but...

"Hey, why are you so quick to rush off?" Fang asked me, as I made to turn and leave. Well, damn.

"Dunno," I said lamely. _I just don't want to talk to you. _"Kinda distracted."

"Aren't we all," he mused. "I'm starving. Heard there's a movie night going on tonight. You coming?"

"Where?" I hadn't heard anything about this.

"Maya says down in the lounge, the big one with the pool table. Movie's not picked yet, but it's probably going to suck."

_Maya said that, huh? Well, if Maya said it, then it must be true, you pathetic piece of—_"Oh. Cool."

"So, you wanna come?"

"Yeah, sure."

"It's a date," Fang said, pulling out of his casual lean against the wall, up to his full height, then sliding out the door.

My thoughts at this point could probably be summed up as "LOLwaitwhat?" and then a whole bunch of swear words intermingled with things I didn't want to name.

Then I registered that, since Fang was out the door, this probably meant that we were to go to dinner. I checked the clock on the wall and saw that it was so—in fact, we were already late.

"Nikki!" I called. "Food."

This effectively tore her away from the group of people she had been talking with, who followed us out of the practice room and into the dining hall. Food was an integral part of the ITAC, mostly because we were so hungry after practicing for as long as we did. My hair was coming out of its ponytail, loose strands hanging around my face. And I was one of the lucky ones; seeing as my dance was slow, I didn't sweat nearly as much as, say, Milan, with his energy-every-second African rhythms.

"Hey, guys," Savannah greeted us. She was already sitting with Maya, and she had her hat back, today a grey plaid one that looked like it belonged in France. Her battered sheet music folder was in front of her, a few pages spilling out. Savannah herself was sharing a large bowl of pasta with the above theater she-bitch. "You all look like absolute hell."

"Oh, thanks," Nikki said sarcastically. "You look fresh and wonderful."

"Why thank you," Savannah glowed. "Cut open my finger again, though."

"Got blisters the size of dimes on my feet oozing pus, though," Fang mocked her, and she gave a disgusted face. He went to go get food and sat down on Maya's other side. I ended up across from him.

"So what are you doing for your monologue?" Fang asked Maya, who turned to look at him, swirling a fork around her mouth in what I would describe as a promiscuous manner.

"The ending line from a movie I like," she said. "Best movie I've ever seen, incidentally."

"Do show," Toby said idly, slouching in his chair. Maya shrugged and put down her fork.

As I watched her face, it changed from average to...something more. Her mouth straightened out into a grim line, and her eyes took on a haunted quality that was difficult to look at too long. She slouched over, and I could see the transformation take clearly.

"You know, as we sat there, listening to the carollers," she said, her voice gravelly but somehow soft. It was...scary.

"I wanted to tell Brian that it was over now, and everything would be okay. But that was a lie. Plus I couldn't speak anyway." She spoke with a nonchalant tone that was imbued with hurt behind the words. I didn't know what kind of character she was playing, but she shot it straight across.

"I wished there was some way for us to go back and undo the past, but there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. I just...stayed silent, trying to telepathically communicate about how sorry I was about what had happened," she continued. "And I thought of all the grief and sadness and fucked-up suffering in the world, and it made me want to escape."

A wistful, dreamy quality took her on. "I wished with all my heart we could just leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night, and magically...disappear..."

And that was that. It was over. It didn't sound like it should be over, but it was.

Toby whistled. Fang clapped softly.

"She's good, huh?" Savannah asked us, and we all nodded, even me. Maya had impressed me, I had to admit. Still didn't like her, but that didn't mean I couldn't respect her talent. I didn't like Lady Gaga, either, but I accepted her talent.

Yeah, I still didn't like her.

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_Savannah's POV _

Savannah let out a sigh, leaning back into the beanbag she was sitting on and popping a piece of popcorn into her mouth. She wasn't too sure of the film that Toby had just put into the player; she just knew it wasn't what she wanted. A romantic comedy, or something like that. She and Maya had argued, but they were shot down. They wanted something 'light'. She grumbled.

"I hate films like this, they're all the same!" Maya murmured to Savannah, looking at the big flat screen with a look of disdain. Savannah nodded her head, silently agreeing. Sappy, romance-y, happy ending-every-time films were not her thing. She was glad there was someone here who shared her opinions.

"Ech. At least we have popcorn," she said, offering the bowl to Maya who shook her head and pushed the bowl away.

"Sorry. Waaaay too many calories!" she explained in her slight Russian accent.

Savannah laughed. "First of all, popcorn doesn't have barely any calories. Second of all, you definitely don't need to worry about that." If there was anyone who _didn't_ need to worry about food, it was the tall, slim and beautiful Maya.

Maya snorted.

"Seriously. You don't," Savannah affirmed with a small smile.

Maya gave a warm smile back. "...Thanks." She turned back to face the screen, a tiny frown on her face. She then reached into the bowl and took a piece of popcorn, shoving into her mouth determinedly. Savannah turned away slightly, hiding her smile.

This caused her to notice Max, however, who was sitting on the loveseat. Next to Fang. And very aware of this fact, if her stiff posture and slight blush were anything to go by. Savannah grinned; Max was in denial. She _definitely _liked Fang, even if she didn't really know it yet. Nikki had told her about Fang's "it's a date" line and that was completely adorable. Savannah loved playing matchmaker with everyone except herself. The two were freaking _meant _to be.

Max hated Maya, though. Savannah knew that it was probably because she thought that Maya would try to steal Fang, and _that _was an even funnier idea. Silly girl. She shouldn't make assumptions before gathering all the facts. Maya trying to steal Fang was about as ridiculous as Savannah herself trying to steal him.

God, but this was boring.

Savannah pulled her iPod out of her pocket—the thing was ever-present, and usually in her ears. She knew that it would probably result in loss of hearing at a young age, but that would be the price she paid for getting moments of pleasure in her youth.

The music effectively blocked out the bad movie, and Savannah contented herself with people-watching. Max had relaxed some, and as Savannah looked at the pair on the loveseat (what a funny name), Fang snuck glances over at his counterpart sitting next to them.

Oh, this was amusing. Savannah made a bet with herself—she'd give them till the fourth round of competition, and if they managed to somehow bumble into a semblance of a relationship, she would give up her own secret.

Now _that _was an interesting prospect.

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**SO HEY GUYS YOU SHOULD REVIEW AND STUFF. :DDD –Fex**

**YEAHYEAHYEAHYEAH. WILL MAKE US VERY HAPPY. YAYAYA. – Blacks (in a somewhat hyper mood)**


	14. Chapter 14

**Fex: That awkward moment when we kind of forget this story exists...**

**Blacks: This chapter ... ugh. Blame me, guys. **

**Fex: Oh, come on. It's not that bad. But really, we're sorry. Honestly. Next update with definitely not be as long in coming.**

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Okay, so. Today was the day, so to speak. Costume picked out (simple black), dance ready, music done...

I felt weird to think that only a few days ago I'd been feeling the same nerves, waiting to perform with the rest of my dance group for the first time. This time it would just be me up on that massive stage, performing the dance I had worked endlessly on to the whole of the ITAC. And this time, the stakes had been raised. With fifteen of us gone with the last round, there was an even slimmer chance of getting though this time round.

Now I was sitting alone at a table in the dining room, picking at the breakfast on the plate in front of me and playing around on my laptop. I checked the length of the mix of 'Possibility' again, making sure it was the length I needed it to be. I looked up briefly to see if I could spot Nikki or Fang anywhere, but not spotting them. Nikki had been ill with nerves – literally- and I was not one to cope with sick. So I assigned Fang to look after her until she recuperated. I allowed myself a brief moment to laugh in my head at the look on his face as I pushed him towards the green-faced, blue-haired English girl before I brought myself back to reality.

Glancing over to the other side of the room, I saw some of my friends (including Savannah, Milan and Toby) crowded around a table. They'd offered to move up and let me sit with them but I opted to sit alone, where I could check over my song obsessively.

"Max?" I heard a high, feminine voice call from behind me. I didn't recognize who it was and turned, a confused expression on my face. I came almost face to face with Miss Tomlinson, the woman who had given me my place here at the ITAC.

"Miss Tomlinson?" I asked, getting up out of my chair and standing in front of her.

"Yes! Oh, it's so good to see you Max!" she said, smiling big and clapping her hands in a very girly way.

"Yeah!" I exclaimed. "I thought I would have seen you sooner; you made it seem like you would be here from the start!" I said, remembering what she had said at my interview.

"So did I! But there were some complications at home, so I couldn't leave until yesterday. But I'm so glad to finally be here! And also glad to see you haven't been eliminated yet!" She giggled.

"Me too." I said, feeling the nerves at the thought of my upcoming performance return with full force.

"I'm sure you'll go far," Miss Tomlinson said reassuringly. "Anyway, you're performing soon, right? I'm on the judging panel."

"Yeah. I'm just checking on my song now," I indicated the open laptop behind me. She peered around me to catch a glimpse of the screen. A mixing program Toby had recommended was open.

"You're not making it shorter are you?" she asked, looking slightly worried.

A feeling of dread settled in my stomach at her words. "Yes. Why?"

Miss Tomlinson suddenly looked kind of sad. "It's against the rules for this round, sweetie. You gotta dance for the whole of the song."

At her words my stomach dropped and any semblance of a good mood vanished. I suddenly had a whole minute of the song with no dance to accompany it. I felt like screaming and pulling my hair out; I really should listen to the rules better.

"I'm so sorry, but it won't be accepted if it's shortened." She looked genuinely upset at this. Then she checked her watch. "I'm supposed to go for a judge's meeting...you still have a little time, sweetie. I hope you can make it."

She got up and, in a whirl of soft orange skirts and perfume, she left.

Goddamnit.

I left my food alone. Breakfast was nowhere near as important as getting this freaking thing _done. _I had cut almost a minute from the song. That meant that I needed approximately one minute.

I could do it, but it would suck and I would be dead by the end of the day.

Screw it. Better dead then flying home.

The practice room was empty. Good. I could figure this out.

I had cut a chorus and one of the verses, leaving the fading end intact but jamming it together with a fade tool that Toby had taught me how to use to make it seem gapless. I wanted it to sound professional, and it did.

Of course, now I would have to throw all that work out the window and try to figure something out.

The chorus...I could just do the same thing as I did for the other choruses. But that seemed wrong, somehow. Like it was the easy way out, which logically I should just do, since I had, what, two hours before I had to be on the stage for my tech time.

I broke out the whiteboard that we had used to plan our first dance, erased something in Fang's handwriting that I couldn't read, and tried to break down my moves for the chorus. It was mostly sways and turns, with two leaps. I had to modify them in some way to get them to look original, but not be original, since I didn't have nearly enough time to actually choreograph and perfect a new sequence.

That was it.

Original, but not original?

I silently thanked every deity in the world, along with Dylan. Dylan most of all, because he was the one that had made us learn the thing in the first place. The thing being retrograde.

Retrograde is a maddening skill for a dancer to get. It's really, really obnoxious and usually takes forever, but you can cheat with it, not do a true retrograde. Because retrograde basically means you take a sequence and do it backwards.

True retrograde would go something like this:

Original sequence: Right turn, leap with left leg in front facing stage left, kneel with right leg up, still facing stage left.

Retrograded sequence: Start kneeling with left leg up, facing stage right, then get up and leap with right leg in front facing stage right, then left turn.

Dyl had learned about it during his brief stint in actual, professional dance lessons. He tortured us with it for about two weeks until we mastered it; he told us it was one of the only foolproof hole-fillers. The audience will look at it and feel as if something is slightly familiar, but they won't be able to tell exactly what unless they understand the concept of retrograde itself. Which the judges probably would, but that wouldn't matter overmuch.

Thank the Lord above. I had a solution for at least half of my problem. A quick review told me that my other verse was only about four eight-counts of choreography. If I could knock the retrograde out in an hour and tie it in to what I had, then I could do the verse in the remaining time and get out of there to my solo time. I felt a wave of relief rush over me and the temptation to stop practicing and celebrate my stroke of inspiration was hard to ignore. But I reminded myself that if I didn't get this down _now_, I could be waving goodbye to England this time tomorrow.

Boy, that was a sobering thought.

But I kept it in my mind, an incentive to make me work faster, stronger, better than I ever had before. I couldn't fail this, not now, not ever. I'd worked my butt off to be good enough for this competition, and I was damned if I was leaving it just because I forgot to listen.

After a short while others began trickling into the practice room after their breakfast, looking at me and probably wondering how long I'd been there before dumping their things on the floor and getting to work themselves. I saw a flash of electric blue followed by a flick of black hair and noticed that Nikki and Fang had entered, but didn't act on it. I was too focused to bother greeting them.

And that was how I carried on for the remainder of my training time. Well, until my ten minute slot on the stage, that is. I caught a glimpse of the time on a turn and started, realizing I only had a few minutes to get there. Fang and Nikki had already gone, already on the stage and I followed her lead, darting out of the door and down the corridor. I reached the door just as she came out. She gave me a reassuring smile.

"Dude, it's so fun in there," she said. "The tech guy's really nice and he does whatever you want. Hey, look, there's Fang."

I looked around. Fang flicked a wave. He was leaning against a wall, with a tote bag under his arm. "What's in there?" Nikki asked as she walked by him. Fang just put a finger to his lips and smiled. Maddening, that boy was.

"Next," called a voice from inside the auditorium.

"Good luck," Fang said smoothly, his voice carrying down the hall.

"You too," I told him. He didn't have to know I was planning to sneak back through and figure out what song he was doing. Also how pyrotechnics came into play. Ohmygod. This was going to be so fun.

The stage seemed so much bigger when I was the only one on it. The tech booth was raised, so I couldn't see the people in it very well, but they had a mic back there.

"Hey, Max," a guy said, the vowels smooth and my name rhyming with "fox." British.

"Hi," I said back, my voice sounding small and weird, echoing back at me in the empty space.

"You have a CD for us, correct?"

"Yes."

"Give it to Ted over there, he'll bring it up."

I looked around to see a guy with a headset coming out onstage, probably the backstage manager. I gave him my disc and he ran up the aisle of the house and up into the booth. I could see him behind the Plexiglas for a second before he came back down and took his place again.

"Now I want you to show me where your starting position is," he said. I moved to it. The lights moved with me. "Any special light color you wanted?"

"Blue," I said. I had decided that yesterday. The regular lights went out and were replaced by the ones with gel sheets over them. They gave the light a blue cast.

The rest of the solo time was basically me figuring out how to do my dance on the stage. Mine was easy enough to get the hang of; it took two run-throughs, which ate up the rest of my time. I was reasonably well-prepared, and though I messed up once on my retrograded sequence, my new part flowed...okay. It wasn't the way I'd like it to be, but it was okay.

Now came the fun part; eavesdropping on Fang. Nonchalance would be essential to pulling this operation off. I tried not to overdo it as I opened the door to the hall where Fang was still waiting, now with his iPod headphones in. I waved at him and pretended like I was walking away, back toward the practice room. But when I heard the door close behind him, I started running.

Exploring the ITAC with Nikki had shown me that there was a door behind the auditorium that led to the backstage area. It was almost never locked. I could enter through there, listen from the wings, and then beat it.

I got there just in time. The same guy in the booth was asking Fang if he was ready. "Yes," Fang said, his flat voice reverberating around the room, though he hadn't spoken particularly loud.

"All right, here we go," said the tech guy.

When the music started, I had to clap my hand over my mouth to keep from giving a shriek of laughter. No way. _No way. _I hadn't been planning to watch, but now I absolutely had to.

Oh my God. This was too good.

"Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?" Katy Perry sang, her carefully synthesized voice booming over the stage.

Oh my God. I felt my jaw drop under my palm as I listened to the song. I could just see Fang start to move, doing a combination that looked fabulous paired with the music.

But my attention was drawn away from the dancing teenager before me after a minute or so and to the bursts of light on either side of the stage. It took me a few moments to register that they were sparklers—actual fireworks, going off in a pattern similar to the beat Fang was dancing to either side of him.

So _this_ was what he had been hiding. I watched for a few more seconds before scurrying away before he walked out and saw me.

I darted down the corridor and through the doors that led to our practice room, still seeing Fang dancing to _Katy Perry_, of all people, with fireworks exploding left, right and center as he moved.

But I kept a straight face as he entered after me, making myself look busy so he wouldn't be suspicious. I debated trying the dance again but a glance to the clock told me I only had five minutes until we broke for lunch, and there was no point working myself up again for so little time. I settled for gathering up my discarded hoodie and bottle of water and making my way to the cafeteria, walking slowly so I wasn't too early.

I'd barely gone two steps out of the doorway when Nikki skipped up to me, a devilish grin on her face and her blue hair swinging around her. This couldn't be good.

"C'mon then!" she wheedled, looking up at me like a puppy. (Yes, looking _up_. I have found someone shorter than me. Iggy would be proud)

"What?" I questioned, casting a glance at her as she skipped beside me.

"I _know_ you spied on Fang."

Ech.

"It was obvious you would. So. Dish the details!" she exclaimed, actually clapping her hands slightly.

"No." I wanted to see her face when she saw it for herself. Plus, I'm just that evil

"...what?" she asked innocently. I didn't look at her. I knew what she was doing; it was something Nudge and Ella always used to do when they were younger: Bambi Eyes. I was quite proud of myself when I saw her turn her head slightly out of the corner of my eye, and then deemed it safe to face her.

"You'll have to wait." I smirked.

"But _whhhyyyyyyyy?_" she moaned, looking at me in despair.

"Because it will be better that way, trust me." I winked, and took her silence as an opportunity to speed up slightly and finally get to the cafeteria.

The Food Hawk was there again, which kind of sucked because (shock) I wasn't hungry. None of us were, judging from the queasy looks on people's faces as they smelled the bars of food. Toby actually put a hand over his stomach and gagged a little.

"No way," Nikki said, backing away from the array of food. "I was already sick twice today. I am _not _eating anything else."

"She'll kill you if you don't." I hadn't even noticed Savannah come up, but here she was, Maya at her side. She was wearing yet another of her hats, this one decorated with blue, green, and purple feathers, bobbing over top of her head like some bird crest. Maya had on skintight black pants and a low-cut shirt, presumably for her theater monologue. I couldn't help looking around to see if Fang was watching her. He wasn't. He was staring at the Chinese food with an expression of displeasure on his olive-skinned face.

"Nikki, they have rice," I told her. "Eat that. It won't kill you." She shrugged and took a plate. Savannah reached past me and plucked a Diet Coke from the display.

"I'm getting a salad," she told me. "Care to join me?"

I went with her, Maya tagging along and chattering the whole time about her monologue. Savannah layered Caesar dressing on her lettuce and went to sit with her music groupies. Maya had a few chunks of meat and put her head together with other theatre people. I dropped down next to Fang with my own small plate of salad.

"Ready?" he asked.

"You have no idea."

"Yeah, me neither."

"Oh, you guys are so wimpy!" Nikki came bouncing back with a plate of rice with soy sauce. "I, for one, am going to kill it. And so is Milan." The African in question, who she had somehow found, smiled and waved from behind her. I moved up slightly and then both sat down, Nikki somehow looking as perky as ever despite looking like she would upchuck just a moment ago.

"You say that now! Just wait until I fall flat on my face in front of everyone," I said to her, looking down at my plate morosely.

"Don't be so negative." She gave me a death glare. "You will be fine, Max." I smiled at her sarcastically and turned to face Fang, giving him a despairing look. She shot one back before a blank expression covered his face and he began eating. I sighed and took his cue, shovelling a forkful of food into my mouth under the hateful eye of the Food Hawk.

* * *

"Can you please step forward and tell us your name? Nice and clearly now, into the camera."

"Maximum Ride."

"Okay, Maximum, thank you. You can begin now."

I took a shaky breath, feeling my heart beating a mile a minute in my chest. All I could see in from of me was the judging panel; the lights thankfully blocked out the massive audience sitting only a short distance away from me. Though being able to see the faces of my friends would have been a comfort. Maybe.

I turned and took a few small steps until I was at the center of the stage. I lowered myself onto the floor, lying on my side and stretching my legs out. I turned my eyes to the floor and felt my breath catch when the lights changed from bright white to soft blue, and gentle music began to play from the speakers surrounding the stage, the first piano notes.

I tried valiantly to quell the feeling of nervousness that threatened to rise within me at being first up. Sure, I knew someone had to do it, but I never thought it would be me. I mean, don't they usually do these kind of things in alphabetical order? I mentally slapped myself and realized that I should be dancing in about...yeah, now.

I lifted one leg slightly and delicately moved my leg back on forth, allowing it to scrape the floor softly. I did this for a few bars, trying to remember to relax my face muscles and not look too tense.

I waited until the third line of lyrics ended and the humming began and slowly raised my torso, swinging my legs out towards the front of the stage at the same time. I used this momentum to get me on my knees and continued to turn until I was standing, facing the audience once more with my left leg positioned in what I hoped was a graceful pose.

I then took a few slow and elegant steps forward, keeping my head down and my muscles relaxed. I forcibly removed all thoughts that weren't to do with my dance out of my head and let myself concentrate fully on how my body was moving, how I was going with the flow.

I reached the end of my walk and stopped. I lifted my arm above my head slowly, moving my head at the same so I could look at it, and also to give me some more interesting lines. I lowered it on the other side of my head, my eyes now facing the front once more as my arm gently swooped around my skull. I let my body lean into the direction it took me, my eyes closing as I went with what felt natural. This took me into another spin until I faced forwards, one foot pointed slightly.

This was where the beat picked up slightly, and the moment it did I let my back sort of collapse. I turned to the side, my arms hanging down in a way that didn't look limp, but graceful, and my neck extended as my head tilted back. This movement was sudden, and hopefully matched the new pace of the music.

I moved from this position to angle my left leg under my body, tuning slightly as I did so . I kept slightly crouched and stretched my left arm out in from of me, pointing to a dark corner of the auditorium. I stayed there for almost a second before drawing up, pulling my arms up to my chest and my legs together. I was like this for a heartbeat before crouching low again and spinning softly, allowing my arms to float around me as I turned and stood up again, constantly ensuring I was relaxed and fluid.

Thank the Lord, I didn't mess up the first part, but pretty soon was the retrograded sequence, and I was still immensely unsure about that.

Traveling across the stage was the hardest part—I had only practiced a couple of time on the stage and I wasn't confident about it at all. I managed to do it okay—I didn't travel as far as I wanted to on one of the diagonal crosses, but I made up for it with the next sequence, stepping back a little farther than I would originally.

To be honest, I don't remember much at all about most of the dance. When I dance, I kind of blank out. I remember the beginning and the end. And that's what I remembered from my Possibility solo. About it, really.

When I stumbled back to my seat, it was with shaking limbs and a dry throat. Nikki handed me a water bottle. I sucked it down and she gave me a smile. Since there were so many solos to do, the music, dance, and drama students were doing theirs separately. In different rooms. We got the stage because we needed the most tech. There was a smaller, less hardcore stage for the drama people, and a music room for the musically gifted.

Layne went next, thus proving that they weren't going in any sort of order, since her last name started with a B. She spoke her name and then performed—I was expecting froufrou, boring pirouettes and grande jetes, but no. She was going more modern with her choice, her lighting dappled like a forest. She was wearing a ripped green dress with spandex under it, and her makeup was like Lady Gaga dramatic, accenting her cheekbones and the corners of her eyes with black makeup.

It was gorgeous. She was through. Most definitely.

In fact, most of them were gorgeous. I hated to condemn anyone, especially someone I liked...but really, I suspected that Toby might be one of the ones aiming toward going back home. And a couple of ballet people.

Fang was last. Go figure. The suspense was killing me.

I was glad that I hadn't told Nikki about what Fang was going to do. Because if I had, I wouldn't have been able to see the expression on her face when the opening notes played. Oh my God. You should have seen the crowd. They were like, raving. Especially at the end. I heard a couple of people debate Fang's sexuality because of his song choice.

I was right about the whole cutting process. Mostly. One of the hip-hop dancers that I never thought would go was cut. Toby—I thought he would have started sobbing, but he actually just pumped a fist in the air and shouted "IT WAS AWESOME WHILE IT LASTED, BITCHES," earning him a warning look from the judges and a laugh from everyone else. We all shared a hug, and, well...that was that.

I was worried about Savannah though. She had been stressing the night before about all of this. She had changed hats about seventeen times and then thrown them all around the room in despair. Nikki and I had to clean up.

For that matter, how had Maya done? I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted her to do. I kinda wanted her to get out of here, leave me alone, and stuff. But at the same time that seemed a little bitchy. I guess I'd just have to wait and see.

The dance students (what was left of them, anyway) all walked out of the auditorium together, feeling a definite sense of loss. And anticipation. For whoever would come to meet us in the cafeteria for dinner.

We, dramatically, were the last ones there.

"OHMYGODMAXNIKKI!" were the words that exploded out of Savannah's mouth as she threw herself on us. Her hat fell off, and Maya, who was behind her, gently picked it up and placed it on her own head, where it perched at an angle, the feathers bouncing gently. When Savannah stopped assaulting us, she removed it from Maya's hair and laughed at the frizz it caused.

"So you got through as well?" Nikki asked Maya happily.

"Obviously," she said, grinning. "I thought it was a little dicey for a while. Turns out judges don't like it when you say "fuck" onstage. Go figure."

"Eh," Fang said.

"Eh," I agreed. "I'm starving."

"God, same," Nikki said dramatically. I had a feeling this meal was going to be a lot bigger than our lunch.

* * *

**And so. I don't know, I was being a pain in the ass with writing this chapter :L I also had a case of Royal Wedding Fever. Very badly. **

**Pretty, pretty please review? We'd love your opinions! **

**-Blacks. (Fex couldn't be bothered to write anything here. Lazy bugger.)**


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